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Jithin steals show in nat’l athletics

Jithin Paul of Jharkhand stole the limelight, beating 2010 Asiad gold medallist Joseph Abraham to second place in a close 400m hurdles race for men while earning a ticket for the Incheon Asian Games on day two of the 18th Federation Cup senior national athletics championships on Sunday. The day saw two national record holders biting the dust.

Under hot and humid conditions at the National Institute of Sports tracks, all the three podium finishers in men’s 400m hurdles crossed qualifying timings of 51.34 secs set by the Athletics Federation of India for taking part in next month’s Asian Games. The selection committee of the AFI can pick two out of the three 400m hurdlers for the Asiad.

National record holder in men’s long jump, Prem Kumar finished a disappointing 11th in a 12-man field in the final round. Ankit Sharma of Madhya Pradesh bagged the gold with a jump of 7.55m, a tad below the Asian Games qualifying standard of 7.63m.

Vigneshwar of Tamil Nadu was second with an effort of 7.39m while Silambarasan, also of Tamil Nadu, was third with 7.36m. Prem Kumar, who set the national record of 8.09m last year, had a 7.42m jump in the qualifying round yesterday but today he had a best effort of 6.82m. He had two foul jumps out of six and his Asiad dream is over.

In men’s shot put, national record holder Om Prakash Karhana’s recent struggle continued as he was beaten to second place by Inderjeet Singh of Haryana who won gold with a new meet record of 19.89m to earn a ticket to the Games.Karhana of ONGC threw the iron ball to 18.89m to bag silver while Jasdeep Singh, also of ONGC, was third with an effort of 18.84m.

The second meet record of the day went to Sajeesh Joseph of Kerala who won the men’s 800m race in 1:46.81, bettering Ghamanda Ram’s 1:47.74 in 2006. Joseph missed the qualifying mark of 1:46.48 by a whisker.
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