Kavita and Mayookha secured double on the final day, while Kerala become overall champions
Ranchi, 21 Feb 2011It was indeed a grandeur occasion for Maharashtra’s Kavita Raut. She went home with a “golden double” as she added a memorable win in the women’s 5000m race on Monday evening, adding it to her victory in 10000m earlier. The athletics competitions of 34th National Games have ended today.In both races Preeja Sreedharan, the reigning Asian Games gold medalist in 10000m, was beaten to second place. The two are good friends and training partners. It was expected that Preeja could take revenge for her defeat on the other day. She managed to do the front most of the time. However Kavita made the move when 200m to go and sprinted towards the finish for her second title of the Games with a Games Record time of 15:54.26.
Preeja Sreedharan got her second silver in 15:54.98, also bettered the previous mark of 16:05.36 set by Punjab girl Sunita Rani in 1999.As expected Soji Mathew gave a gold medal to Kerala in the men’s race. The first four runners in this event have bettered the meet mark. Mathew clocked 14:11.99 for the top spot. A fast emerging Rahul Kumar Pal from Maharashtra settled with silver in 14:14.35. Mohammed Yunus from Services overpowered UP’s Suresh Kumar Patel at the last metre for the bronze (14:15.26 to 14:15.48).Mayookha upstaged Prajusha for the doubleKerala athletes were 1-2 in women’s triple jump. Mayookha Johny, who briefly held the national record in this event before her state-mate M.A. Prajusha snatched it during the Commonwealth Games at New Delhi last year, delivered her best today for the first place. Started with an identical 13.02m on their first try, Prajusha lead the fray with her second round 13.20m. Mayookha jumped 1 cm farther on the fourth and her golden jump came next with a performance of 13.31m. Prajusha ended in second place with her 13.20m while Maharashtra’s Commonwealth Youth Games champion Shradha Ghule finished third (13.11m).Earlier in the evening Nitin Kumar opened up the gold rain for Services in men’s 200m. The final race was slow when compared to qualifying rounds. However there was a tight finish. Nitin pushed M. Manikanda Raj (AP) for the gold in three thousandths of a second (21.737 to 21.740). Abdul Najeeb Qureshi, also from Andhra, who recorded a meet best 21.16 secs during the semi-finals, disappointed with the bronze in 21.75s.In a similar fashion, 18-year-old G. Mounika from Andhra Pradesh upsets H.M. Jyothi, the 100m victor from Karnataka, for the podium finish. Mounika (24.05), Jyothi (24.27) and
Kerala sprinter V. Santhini (24.73) were the medalists in this event.Rajasthan got its second gold through Manju Bala in hammer throw (56.73m). Kerala got its first ever medal in this event through Anitha Abraham (55.77m). Gunjan Singh from Uttar Pradesh satisfied with a bronze in 54.97m. In a biggest upset, national and games record holder Hardeep Kaur finished outside the medal bracket with her paltry 54.41m.Services quartet of R.K. George, Premanand, Kunju Mohammed and S.K. Mortaza clocked 3:09.54 to conquer the men’s 4x400m relay, but missed the meet mark by three-hundredths of a second. Punjab (3:09.82) and Kerala (3:10.02) occupied the next two spots.Kerala celebrated a great evening by taking the women’s relay gold. The foursome of R. Anu, Ambika Sreedharan, C. Arya and Sini Jose completed the task in 3:39.14. Andhra Pradesh (3:43.09) and Jharkhand (3:454.08) got the silver and bronze medals respectively.Kerala state become the overall champions with 9 gold, 10 silver and 8 bronze medals. Team Kerala also got the top spot in the women’s division with 6 gold, 7 silver and 2 bronze medals while Services had the honour in men with 7-1-5, a tally which put them as overall runners-up as well.
