Harbans betters shot put Games record

With most of the star athletes deciding to take a break after their Bangkok Asian Games campaign, the athletic events somewhat lost its colour.In the first event of the day, Uttar Pradesh got their second medal when Sanjay Rai finished ahead of R Sanjeevan (Services) and Biridhan Marandi (Bihar) in the long jump event.

In the women’s shot put, Harbans Kaur pushed the National Games record to 16.54 metres from her own mark of 16.37 set in the previous edition at Bangalore.

The strong Kerala got their first athletic medal when Jetty C Joseph jumped to 6.23 metres to clinch the long jump (women) gold. Her teammate LekhaThomas claimed the silver and Tapasi Bour of West Bengal got the bronze.In men’s 10,000 final, hosts Manipur’s N Gojen Singh, buoyed by a partisan home-crowd got the better of BS Lone (Bihar) to claim the gold while K Shankar (TN) got the bronze.

In the steeplechase, Uttar Pradesh got their second medal in athletics when R Yadav clocked 9.14.21 metres. A Kumar (Services) and S Nayar of Maharashtra came second and third.

Asiad double gold medallist Jotirmoyee Sikdar (Bengal), Paramjit Singh (Punjab) and fellow quartermilers Jata Sankar, Lijjo David, dinesh Rawat, distance-runner Gulab Chand and women discuss thrower Neelam J Singh of Punjab and most of the top men throwers have opted out of the National Games to take away the glamour of the events.

However, in this less impressive lineup, in the 100 metres hurdles (women), A Biswal of Orissa gave her state the first gold of the games when she came first clocking 13.90 sec finishing ahead of Debi Bose (Bengal) and Mukti Saha, also of Bengal.

In the lasteven-of the day, V Pandeshwari (TN) also brought the first gold to her state when she finished ahead of J Vijayalaxmi (TN) clocking 24.27 secs. In fact it was a clean sweep by the Tamil Nadu girls as Samam Thagam completed this list with the bronze.