Shakti heaves National record

Jyotirmoy confirmed her status of being the best middle-distance runner in the country by winning the 1000 metres and for good measure won even the quarter-mile. Amit Khanna, recovering from an operation and poor form, won the 200 metres, finished third in the 100 and anchored the India A relay team to a time of 40.38 seconds.

The 36-year-old Shakti was way ahead of the competition. He overcame a foul throw in the third attempt before improving upon his own record set in 1995 by 30 cms. Incidentally his National record is better thanthe Asian Games record of 19.26m.

Jyotirmoy, who clocked 2:44.31 for the 1000 metres kept her long time adversary, Rosa Kutty at bay while winning the race. In the 400 metres, she destroyed the field which included Usha and Rosa, winning by at least five metres. She timed 53.61 with Usha clocking 54.06 and Rosa returning 54.45.

Jyotirmoy, who has clocked 2:01 for the 800 metres, which is well under the qualifying mark for the Asiad expressed satisfaction with her timing over a kilometre. “I could not have run faster,” said Jyotirmoy, who remains one of the medal prospects in the Asiad.

Amit Khanna, put behind his recent lacklustre display to clock 10.67 while finishing third in the 100 metres which was won by Anil Kumar in 10.63. CT Dorai, who won the gold in the Raja Bhalendra meet at New Delhi, was pushed to the second spot with 10.66 secs.

Amit easily won the 200 metres (21.78), with Jata Shankar and Anand Menezes finishing second and third. It was a remarkable result for Anand who recovered frommalaria and was discharged from the hospital only on Sunday.

The 400 metres relays were run as one race with India A and B men’s and women’s team competing together. Amit Khanna anchored India A to victory with a margin of over almost 15 metres.

Gulab Chand, a head Ticket Collector in Northern Railway based at Lucknow, once again got the better of his arch-rival, Bahadur Prasad, pulling away after the final bend to win the race in 8:23.57 secs.

Bahadur made a valiant bid but did not have the energy and settled for the silver in 8:23.72. Arun D’Souza finished third in 8:30.04.

Gulab, who won silver in the 5,000 and 10,000 in the Asian Track and Field meet at Fukoka, Japan, had beaten Bahadur over 5,000 metres in the Raja Bhalendra meet too.

The great duel in the women’s discus went in favour of Swaranjit Kaur who threw 56.95 metres, pushing Neelam Singh to second (56.21) and Sugan Yadav to fourth (53.65).

Shakti Singh and Swaranjit were declared the best athletes of the meet.