Dagar dominates athletics arena

Ranchi: Asian junior champion Harvinder Singh Dagar posted a meet record to dominate the athletics arena even as Karnataka`s Sahna Kumari narrowly missed a new mark in the 34th National Games here on Friday.

Asian Games gold medalist Sudha Singh did not start, even though her name figured in the list of the women`s 3000m steeplechase that saw Priyanka Singh Patel of UP setting a new meet record. The promising UP lad, Dagar posted a new Games mark hurling the ball and chain to 66.79m en route to the title, while statemate Chandrodaya Narayan Singh, a favourite in the event, settled for the silver with a throw of 65.22m. The bronze went to Delhi`s Nirbhay Singh in 61.99m.Ankit Sharma gave Madhya Pradesh a proud moment when he snatched the men`s long jump title with his last-round jump of 7.61m. The event saw an upset as national champion Maha Singh was pushed to the fifth place (7.53m). Punjab`s Shamsher Pratap Singh (7. 59) and Tamil Nadu jumper K Prem Kumar (7.58) were the silver and bronze medalists respsectively. In the women`s 3000m steeplechase, UP`s Priyanka Singh Patel and Haryana`s Kiran Tiwari had a keen tussle, with the former winning the title in the last 20m and setting a new Games record time of 10:40.81. Kiran was second at 10:41.19 -- he also bettered the previous mark of 10:56.35 set by Sudha in the last edition in Guwahati. Tamil Nadu`s Jayakumar Surender and M M Anchu of Kerala notched their personal best timings to clinch the 110m men`s and 100m women`s hurdles.Earlier, national record holder Deepmala Devi, representing Jharkhand, won the gold in 1:43.04 secs. Gaurav Kumari of Maharashtra was just 27 seconds behind for the silver while Manipur`s L Sarda got the bronze in 1:49:10. In the women`s high jump, national champion Sahana Kumari missed a chance to improve the meet mark by just 1 cm. She was a clear winner at 1.81m. Bobby Aloysius of Kerala has the Games record with 1.82. Kerala jumper KC Chandana and Bengal`s Mallika Mondal had an identical 1.76m clearance. However, the former was awarded the silver medal as she had less number of failures in all her attempts. PTI