Odisha’s Dondapati Jayaram stole the limelight on the second day of the 39th National Junior Athletics Championships at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar on Sunday evening as he won the men’s U-20 100m title with a timing of 10.50s.
Jayaram, who competed at the World Athletics U20 Championships in Lima earlier this year, was able to bag the crown despite a great run from Maharashtra’s Laukik Melge who finished second with a timing of 10.52s.
Melge running on Jayaram’s left lane tried his best to come from behind and break the hearts of the home fans but Jayaram was able to hold onto the lead and cross the finish line first with his personal best timing. Meanwhile, Harsh Raut, also from Maharashtra, finished third with a timing of 10.75s.
Speaking after the event, Jayaram, who has been training at the Odisha Reliance Foundation Athletics High-Performance Centre (HPC), said, “I am very happy to have won this gold for my state. Performing before the home crowd was an added advantage for me.”
While he fared well in the junior South Asian Athletics Championship (SAAC) in Chennai and was also a part of the 4x100m relay teams that won bronze in the Asian U20 Athletics Championships in both 2023 and 2024, Jayaram is now focused on doing well at the nationals and the World University Games.
Meanwhile, in the U-20 women’s 100m, it was Sakshi Chavan from Gujarat who bagged the title with a timing of 11.86s. V Sudheeksha of Karnataka and Anusha Biswas of West Bengal came second and third with timings of 12.00s and 12.06s, respectively.
However, it was Tamil Nadu’s Abhinaya Rajarajan who ran a superb race in the women’s U-18 100m. On her way to a gold medal, Abinaya clocked 11.66s to better the previous meet record of 11.89 secs set by Rashmi Sheregar nine years ago in Ranchi.
As for Haryana’s World U20 bronze medalist in women’s 10,000m race walk Aarti, she continued her domination at the domestic meet by leading from start to finish and grab the gold medal. She clocked 47:21.68s to better the previous meet record of 47:30.94 set by Mansi Negi in 2022.
Haryana’s international high jumper, Pooja, also improved her own meet record (1.81m set in 2023) in the women’s U18 category by clearing 1.82m.