Mohit smashes decathlon U18 national record

Vadodara: Haryana athlete Mohit Kumar set the stage alight by scripting a new youth national record in the men's decathlon on the second day of the 15th National Youth Athletics Championships here on Sunday.

Mohit tallied 6707 points at the end of the ten events to erase the old mark of 6618 points set by A Sangwan last year.

Mohit was challenged all the way by Andhra Pradesh athlete Sourabh Rathi who also went past the old national record before falling just two points short of Mohit with a total of 6705 points.

Both marks were also far superior to the old meet record of 6198 points secured by Rajesh at Thehnipalam in 2016.

The men's decathlon was for all purposes a two-man competition with Mohit sealing the win with the 1500m the final race at the Manjalpur Sports Complex here on Sunday.

Before the race, Mohit had trailed Rathi, having secured with 5954 points after nine events compared to 5959 by his opponent.

At the 1500m though, Mohit would clock 4:28.75 seconds to earn 753 points while Rathi clocked 4:29.81 seconds to earn 746 points.

Over the course of nine events, Mohit clocked 11.85 seconds in the 100m, 6.48m in the long jump, 12.24m in the shot put, 1.86m in the high jump, 52.57seconds in the 400m dash, 15.25 seconds in the 100m hurdles, 37.94m in the discus throw, 4m in the pole vault event, 48.90m in the javelin throw and 4.28.75 seconds in the 1500m.

Taking third place was Maharashtra's Usaid Khan who also went better than the meet record with a total of 6429 points.

Khan was, infact, in first place after the first five events of the competition with 3461 points compared to 3322 points for Mohit and 3308 points for Rathi, but had a poor second day of competition, culminating in 607 points for the 1500m in which he clocked 4:51.96 seconds.

In other events, Rahul Sharma of Uttar Pradesh and Josna Simov of Karnataka earned the title of the fastest man and woman of the competition.