Jhakar sets national record on final day

Haryana's Ashish Jhakar, who set a national record in the boys' U-20 hammer throw, was the star of the concluding day of the 16th Federation Cup Junior National Athletics Championships here on Sunday.

Jhakar produced an effort of 75.04M to shatter the previous record of 71.53M by Harvinder Singh Dagar at the 2010 Asian Youth Championships in Hanoi. The mark was also a personal best for the 19-year-old Jhakar, erasing the 69M show at the 2016 Asian Junior Championships. Jhakar set a new record with his very first throw of the competition, hurling the hammer to a distance of 71.60M. He subsequently improved that to 71.96M with his third throw.

All eyes were on Damneet Singh, before the event. But the 2017 World Youth Silver medallist’s best throw was nearly five meters behind that of Jhakar, with the best effort of 70.37M on the day. That mark was enough for a silver for the 18-year-old from Punjab, ahead of Nitesh Punia who claimed bronze (68.27M).

In the boys’ category, Jhakhar grabbed the best athlete award with 1118 points while 100M hurdles gold medallist Sapna Kumari was awarded the best athlete prize with 1047 points. In the team championships, Haryana bagged the title with 177.50 points while hosts Tamil Nadu finished second with 151.50 points.

In the U-20 women’s 5000M race, Punjab’s Suman Rani clocked 17:02:67 seconds to erase the old meet mark of 17:10:95 seconds set by Sanjivani Jadhav in 2015. Poonam Sonune was the silver medallist in a time of 17:03:30 seconds while Savita Pal of Assam took the bronze in 17:54:87 seconds.

Uttar Pradesh's Dhirendra Kumar set a new meet mark in the pole vault. The 19-year-old cleared a height of 4.80M to be level in the record books with S Siva who managed the same effort in 2015. Anuj of Telangana (4.50M) and Yogesh Sakthivel (4.40M) of Tamil Nadu bagged silver and bronze respectively.

Sprinter Akash Kumar of Uttar Pradesh, who was shocked in the 100M battle by Gurvinder Singh, clinched the U-20 men’s 200M title. The 19-year-old cruised to gold clocking 21.53 seconds. He beat Tamil Nadu’s Nitin Scidanandh (21.95). Bronze went to Satnam Singh of Punjab, who clocked 21.98 seconds.