JOIN USGurindervir Singh of Punjab set a national U-20 record as he claimed gold in the 100m at the 16th Federation Cup Junior Athletics Championships here on Saturday.
Gurindervir clocked 10.47 seconds to shatter the old mark of 10.57 seconds set by Augustine Yeshudas of Kerala in 2013.
Gurindervir, the gold medallist at the Asian Youth Championships last year, also improved on his personal best of 10.69 seconds.
The Punjab runner, the reigning champion in the U-18 category, finished ahead of the current U-20 national champion Akash Kumar of Uttar Pradesh, who recorded a time of 10.65 seconds. Bronze went to Prajwal Mandanna of Karnataka who clocked 10.66 seconds.
Another U-20 national champion, Sapna Kumari of Jharkhand, also added the Federation Cup medal to her trophy case. Sapna won the women’s 100m hurdles with a meet record of 13.78 seconds.
The 19-year-old was well clear of the old mark of 14.04 seconds set by Mukti Saha in 2001.
Sapna's mark was just short of the national record of 13.59 set by Gayathri Govindarajan in 2010.
Pragyan Sahu of Orissa took silver with 14.60 seconds while Nandhini Kongan of Tamil Nadu claimed bronze with a time of 14.68 seconds.
Rio Olympian Jisna Mathew broke little sweat as she eased to the women’s U-20 400m gold medal, winning in 54.73 seconds. Jisna finished well ahead of Haryana’s Rachna, who clocked 55.49 seconds and Subha Venkatesh (56.19) of Tamil Nadu.
Asian Youth champion Sanjay Kumar won the 10000m walk as expected, clocking a time of 42:09:44 seconds to set a new meet record. Kumar shaved more than a minute off the old mark of 43:36:67 seconds recorded by Eknath Turambekar last year. Silver and bronze went to Haryana’s Juned (42:22:21 seconds) and Punjab’s Akashdeep Singh (42:36:10 seconds) respectively.
Asian Youth Championship silver medalist Ashish Bhalothia also didn’t have to push himself on the day. The shot putter, who has a personal best of 18.50m, only threw 17.89m in the U-20 category.
In the U-20 men’s 400m race, Haryana’s Gaurav triumphed in 46.93 seconds. The time was a new meet record, erasing the previous mark of 47.08 seconds set by Dharun Ayyasamy in 2015.
Karnataka’s Nihal Joel won the silver in 47.08 seconds while Rajesh Ramesh of Tamil Nadu took the third spot in 47.52 seconds.