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The first three days of the National Interstate Senior Athletics Championships turned fruitful for top Indian Athletes as more than 14 stars booked the Asian Games berth.
The five-day tournament is an important event for the Indian top athletes as this is set to be the final selection trial for Hangzhou Asian Games, which will be held from September 23 to October 8.
The opening day of the 62nd edition witnessed three athletes making it to the Asian Games. In the 20km Race Walk, senior athlete Sandeep Kumar, who grabbed the gold medal, clocked 1:27:12 seconds which was better than the Asian Games qualification cut-off.
The distance runners, Kartik Kumar and Gulveer Singh finished top two in the men's 10,000m. Kartik Kumar finished with 29:01.84 seconds, while Gulveer Singh ended second with 29:03.78 seconds, beating the qualification time for Asia Games by more than 20 seconds.
12 Athletes book Asian Games berth on Day 3
The 2nd day of the competition witnessed as many as 12 athletes booking their flight to China as they clocked numbers better than the qualification time.
The men's Triple Jump event witnessed all the top three athletes making it to the Asian Games. Praveen Chitravel, Abdulla Aboobacker and Eldhose Paul managed to breach the cut-off time.
After winning 100m gold, Jyothi Yarraji clinced a yellow metal in the 100m hurdles as well.
The top heptathlete from India, Swapna Barman, ended with a Gold medal on Day 2. She qualified for Asia Games with 5,918 points. Tejaswin Shankar won the decathlon gold medal on Saturday. The 24-year-old added 7,576 points, crossing the Asian games cut-off of 7500 points. Notably, he suffered from a bleeding nose and ankle niggle.
Agasara Nandini, the first female athlete to qualify for the 100-meter hurdles finals at the U-20 Junior World Championships, has qualified for the Asian Games as well.
Tamil Nadu's Vithya Ramraj finished her race with 13.48 seconds clearing the Asian Games cut-off of 13.63 seconds. Pavithra Venkatesh made heads turn with her 4.10m in the pole vault and made it to the Asia Games.
Parul Chaudhary impressed as well. The 28-year-old won the gold in the 3000m Steeplechase and made it to China. On her way, she also broke her personal record.
The top two athletes in the High Jump competition also made it to the Asian Games. Sarvesh Anil Kushare and Jesse Sandesh breached the Asian Games qualification mark of 2.24m.
With two more days to go, several top athletes will be keen to make their mark.
