Priyanka Kerketta Leaps into the Record Books on Day 1

Lucknow: The 15th Federation Cup National Junior Athletics Championships got off to a promising start at the P.A.C Athletics Stadium with a number of commendable performances by the young athletes.

Priyanka Kerketta broke the Junior National Record to win the Girls’ Long Jump event. The Jharkhand girl produced a best effort of 6.30m to clinch the first position decisively. The previous record was 6.25m. Uttar Pradesh’s Deepanshi Singh (5.80m) and Punjab’s Renu (5.79m) won the second and third positions.

Abhishek Pal emerged as the winner in the closely-contested Boys 5000m event. The 19 year old representing Uttar Pradesh finished with a time of 14:35.70, just ahead of Haryana’s Gurpreet (14.36.54) and Himachal’s Savan Barwal (14.36.82).

Another youngster from UP, Kavita Yadav, grabbed pole position in the Girls 3000m race with a timing of 9:54.98. Fellow competitor from Uttar Pradesh, Savita Pal (9.56.48), was a close second. Poonam Sonune (10.03.76) of Maharashtra came in the third position.

In the evening session, Karanveer won the Boys Shot Put event. The athlete from Punjab produced a 17.8 metre effort on his fourth throw to clinch the victory, ahead of Delhi boy Sahib Singh (17.16m) and Haryana’s Ashish Bhalotia (17.00m).

Rajasthan’s Sanjana Choudhari won the Girls Javelin Throw event with a 45.93m throw. Alka Singh (44.16m) of UP and Haryana’s Monika (43.40m) won the second and third places respectively.

In the Boys’ 100m, Nuzrat came in first position with a timing of 10.88s. The Haryana athlete was followed by Amlan Borgohain (10.98s) of Telangana and Rejaul Molla (10.99s) of West Bengal. Akhsay Nain (11.04s), who impressed with his performances at the recently concluded Asian Youth Athletics championships in Bangkok, had to settle for fifth position.

G.Nithya from Telangana won the Girls’ 100m sprint, with a timing of 12.19s, beating Diandra Valladares (12.33s) of Kerala and K. Rama Lakshmi (12.34s) of Tamil Nadu..

Manipur’s Manjeet Singh won the top honour in the Boys’ 1500m run, with a time of 4:00.22. Savan Barwal (4.00.94) and Yogesh Gonal (4.01.18) were second and third, respectively.

In the Girls’ 1500m event, it was UP’s Nandini Gupta who came first with a timing of 4:42.51. Durga Deore (4.44.84) and Manisha Thakur (4.45.17) also managed a podium finish.

In the Girls’ Discus Throw, Suravi Biswas of West Bengal came first with a 45.83m effort. She was followed by Ekta (41.19m) of Haryana and Arpandeep Bajwa (40.72m) of Punjab.