Athletes from Odisha impressed with solid performances on the last day of the 39th Junior National Athletic Championships as they grabbed four gold at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday.
Among the men, Odisha’s Dondapati Jayaram and Pratik Maharana won the 200m titles in the U20 and U18 categories, respectively, while Ommkar Prasad Nanda grabbed the top spot in the U18 shot put with a throw of 19.96m. Meanwhile, among the women Laxmipriya Kisan finished on top of the podium in the U20 800m event.
Among other major results, Haryana’s Deepika set a meet record with a throw of 52.45m in U20 javelin to grab the gold. The earlier record of 49.05m belonged to Pushpa Jakhar that was set in 2016.
This has been an incredible year for Deepika, who trains under coach Hanuman Singh in Bangaon, as besides winning a number of laurels she also set a national record in the U20 category during the 63rd National Open Athletics Championships in Bengaluru.
As for her statemate Jyoti and Odisha’s P Arpita Archa Sahoo, they came second and third with throws of 48.68m and 45.14m respectively.
In the U20 men’s javelin event, Uttar Pradesh’s Rohan Yadav expectedly won the title with a throw of 69.73m. It was just short of his PB of 70.03m that he achieved during the Asian U20 Athletics Championships in Dubai earlier this year that helped him bag the second spot.
Dipanshu Sharma, who won the gold in the Asian U20 Athletics meet and also competed in the Junior World Athletics, grabbed the second spot with a throw of 68.89m. Himanshu Mishra threw 68.36m to come third.
Gujarat’s Sakshi Chavan, meanwhile, set a new meet record in the U20 women’s 200m with a timing of 24.14s to complete the 100-200 double. The earlier record of 24.24s belonged to Jisna Mathew who achieved it in 2017. Haryana’s Sumit Rathee also broke the meet record in U20 men’s 3000m steeplechase with a timing of 8:45.75. In the last two events of the meet, the men’s and the women’s teams from Tamil Nadu won both the U20 4x400m relays.
Earlier in the day, Odisha’s Jayaram grabbed his third gold of the meet after winning the men’s U20 200m with timing of 21.27s. It was just 0.01s short of Veeresh Mathur’s meet record of 21.26s set last year and he celebrated the victory with Cristiano Ronaldo’s famous ‘Siuuuu’ celebration.
Despite missing the mark, Jayaram was more than happy with his performance and said, “It is not easy to win three golds for a sprinter and I’m very happy that I achieved this feat. I hope to do even better in the future. Doing it in front of my home state crowd makes it even more special.”
Maharana, however, was able to break the meet record in the men’s U18 200m as he clocked 21.28s, which was 0.06s faster than the earlier meet record of 21.34s set by Shanmuga S in 2019.
Overall championships: Male: Haryana 116 points; Female: Haryana 179 points.
Best athletes: Men: U14- Bhiky Barman, U16- Dhairya Bhanderi, U18- Kiran K, U20- Jay Kumar; Women: U14- Minakshi, U16- Shourya Ambure, U18- Abhinaya Rajarajan, U20- Sakshi Chavan.