Jyothi wards off Shanti on way to 200M gold

Railway athletes call the shots with dominant performances

Jyothi breasted the tape in 24.6 seconds, just 0.1 second ahead of her rival from Andhra Pradesh, who took silver in 24.7s. Another Andhra sprinter, N Sudha, clocked 26.0 seconds to bag the bronze.

Railways hogged the limelight in the meet which is a prelude to the first leg of the Asian GP on Tuesday.

However, no new records were created at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex at Balewadi.

Manikanda Raj of Jharkhand claimed the men’s 200M title in a time of 21.7 seconds, beating Maharashtra’s Krishna Kumar Rane to second place (21.8).

Railway athletes made a clean sweep in the men’s pole vault which was won by Gajanan Upadhyay with an effort of 4.90 metres, followed by Vadivel (4.90) and Bineesh Jacob (4.70) for the second and third places respectively.

The men’s 400M hurdles also saw near-complete domination by the Railways, who had the top two finishers in Joseph Abraham (50.77s) and Avin A Thomas (51.38s) respectively.

Discus thrower Vikas Poonia of Railways found a distance of 51.72 metres to pocket the gold and Services’ Vipender Singh took silver with a throw of 50.43.

Maharashtra women made a clean sweep of the 5000M race with Manisha Salenkh clocking 18 minutes 34.5 seconds to clinch the gold.

The silver went to Reshma Patil (21:13.1) and the bronze was won by Pornima Shinde (28:12.1).

Results: Men: 200M (Race B): Manikanda Raj (Jharkhand) 21.7 seconds, 1; Krishna Kumar Rane (Maharashtra) 21.8, 2; S Srinivas (AP) 22.3, 3.

1500M: Ghamanda Ram (ONGC) 4:07.85, 1; Pranjal Gogai (Maharashtra) 4:08.50, 2; Arjun Pradhan (Indian Army) 4:09.02, 3.

400M hurdles: Joseph Abraham (Railways) 50.77, 1; Avin A Thomas (Railways) 51.38, 2; T Balamurugan (TN) 53.22, 3.

Javelin throw: Kashinath (Services) 73.18 metres, 1; Samarjeet Singh (ONGC) 69.64, 2; Vipin Panwar (UP) 67.07, 3.

Discus throw: Vikas Poonia (Railways) 51.72, 1; Vipender Singh (Services) 50.43, 2; Sunil Kumar (Railways) 49.68, 3.

Hammer throw: Shiv Kumar (Uttarakhand) 58.75, 1; Kaushal Singh (Bihar) 51.67, 2; Vipender Singh (Services) 49.05, 3.

Pole Vault: Gajanan Upadhaya (Railways) 4.90, 1; Vadivel (Railways) 4.90, 2; Bineesh Jacob (Railways) 4.70, 3.

Women: 200M (Race B): H M Jyothi (Karnataka) 24.6 seconds, 1; Ch Shanti (AP) 24.7, 2; N Sudha (AP) 26.0, 3. 5000M: Manisha Salenkha (Maharastra) 18:34.5, 1; Reshma Patil (Maharastra) 21:13.1, 2; Pornima Shinde (Maharastra) 28:12.1, 3.

Long jump: Mayookha Johny (Kerala) 6.46 metres, 1; M A Prajusha (Railways) 2; 6.31, 2; Reshmi Bose (Railways) 6.10, 3.

Javelin throw: Rupinder Kaur (Punjab) 43.18, 1; Tuleswari Patel (CISF) 41.47, 2; Gurpreet (Haryana) 39.13, 3.