Senior National Athletics State Championships 2012 Review Part 2

…Continuing from Part 1 here is a detailed look at the times set by our athletes and the comparison with our National Records, plus 2012 London Olympic Qualification Standard B benchmarks

Seven Time Champion Surekha from Tamil Nadu clinched the first Gold on offer as she leaped 3.60m in the Womens Pole Vault event. In the absense of Vikas Gowda the Discuss event went on without much of a toss. Similar fate occured in Renjith Maheshwary‘s triple Jump event. The long distance 5000m race saw UP and and West Bengal win gold in Mens and Womens respectively. Anu Rani and Suman Devi from UP clinched gold and silver for thier state in Javelin Throws.

Sahana Kumari crossed 1.92m in womens High Jump and thus set a new National Record and on the way earned a a place in the Indian Olympics team. Bobby Aloysis had jumped 1.91m nealry a decade ago, to hold, both, the Meet and National mark.

The highlight of Day 1 was the 100m sprint events as the hosts cherished a famous victory, in both mens and womens, with Abdul Qureshi and Geeta Saati clinching Gold.

Ghamanda Ram representing Rajasthan achieved first Gold for his state. Similarly , Kunu Mohammed got Kerala’s first gold in sprint as he narrowly missed the Olympic mark by three hundreth of a second ! 30 year old National Record in 3000m steeple chase was intact as Manipur’s Sanjit Luwang and Tamil Nadu’s Ramachandran fought side by side to the finish.

Another highlight of the championship was the much awaited run of Tintu Luka in 800m along with Sinimole Paulose. Having already booked a place in the Indian team for London , Tintu nearly equalled the B time for Olympics but a run below the 2 minute barrier is what is expected of her. Sini could not catch up with Tintu and was behind by 2 seconds and thus failed to qualify for the Olympics.

Kerala’s Prajusha could not follow Mayookha Johny‘s footsteps as she failed to surpass her personal best and thus did not qualify for London 2012 in Long Jump.

Mens 400m hurdles saw a keenly contested run between former Champion Joseph Abrahim and junior Champion Durgesh Kumar Pal. But Punjab’s Satinder Singh shocked both, by breaking the 50s barrier, but failed to cross the Olympic Standard B by a whisker.

Bimin took Kerala at the top of the charts with his Gold in the Pole Vault. Karnataka’s Arshad took Gold with his last try, in the mens Long Jump. Anil Singh won Delhi’s maiden yellow in the 2012 championship with his Javelin throw. Kerala Girls did a clean sweep in the 400m hurdles but the timings recorded were not impressive. Rajasthan got thier second gold via Manu Bala’s attempt in the Hammer.

On the final day of the Championships , the 200m Mens and womens sprint saw a photo finish while in 1500m mid distance Haryana’s Sandeep missed the Meet Record by a whisker. Rajasthan had field day as Kheta Ram in 10km and Shakti Singh in Shot Put won Gold. Suresh representing Jharkhand came close to break the National Record in the 110m hurdles. In the womens 1500m Jhuma Khatum and Bindu crossed the finish line side by side but the later fell short by 0.12s

The Triple Jump showpiece event saw Prajusha and Shradha Ghule finish with the top two positions in the pits similar to the Long Jump competition.

A well hosted event came to a conclusion in the floodlit Balyogi Stadium in Hyderabad. With records being broken and new names propping up we have a new hope in the world of Indian Athletics as second ranked Athletic Nation in Asia now takes on the World on Olympics come August.