National Open Athletics Championships: Tamil Nadu’s pole vaulter Rosy Meena Paulraj breaks her national record on opening day

Tamil Nadu’s Rosy Meena Paulraj won gold at the 61st National Open Athletics Championships in the women's pole vault event by improving her national record for the second time in a fortnight. She cleared 4.21m on her way to winning the title, bettering her previous record of 4.20m.

The National Open Athletics Championships got underway at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru on Saturday.

Since the pole vault isn’t on the priority list of the Athletics Federation of India (AFI), it will be interesting to see Rosy's progress in the coming months and whether she will be able to qualify for the Asian Games next year.

Away from the field events, Railways’ Ravina hogged the limelight by winning gold in the women’s 20km race walk. Ravina’s time of 1:34:55.00 was better than the previous record of 1:38:30.00, which was in the name of Bhawna Jat, set in 2019 in Ranchi.

There were no fireworks in the 100m dash on the opening day of the competition as Assam’s Amlan Borgohain, hot favorite for the title, pulled out of the domestic meet.

In the women’s 100m event, Himashree Roy of West Bengal and Srabani Nanda of Odisha were the fastest qualifiers for the final, clocking 11.52 seconds and 11.53 seconds respectively. Hima Das of Assam too made the final round. Andhra Pradesh’s Jyothi Yarraji did not finish her preliminary 100m race.

The women’s 400m final featuring Subha Venkatesan of Tamil Nadu and R Vithya Ramran is expected to be keenly contested because as many as six runners have clocked sub-54 seconds.

National Open Athletics Championships: Results (all finals):

Men

20km Race Walk: 1. Suraj Panwar (Uttarakhand) 1:25:23.00; 2. Akshdeep Singh (Punjab) 1:25:26.00; 3. Paramjeet Singh Bisht (Services) 125:27.00.

Women

Pole Vault: 1. Rosy Meena Paulraj (Tamil Nadu) 4.21m (National and Meet record. Old NR: 4.20, Rosy Meena Paulraj, Gandhinagar, 2022; Old MR: 4.15, VS Surekha, New Delhi, 2014); 2. Pavithra Venkatesh (Railways) and Baranica Elangovan (Railways) 4.00.

Discus Throw: 1. Paramjot Kaur (Railways) 50.81m; 2. Nidhi Rani (Railways) 50.29; 3. Neetika Verma (Uttar Pradesh) 49.70.

20km Race Walk: 1. Ravina (Railways) 1:34:55.00 (New Meet Records. Old: 1:38:30.00, Bhawna Jat, Ranchi, 2019); 2. Vandana (Karnataka) 1:37:19.00; 3. Munita Prajapati (Uttar Pradesh) 1:37:49.00.

The National Open Athletics Championships will continue on Sunday.