Sharwan qualify for Asian Juniors, Sanjivini erase meet record

Sharwan Kharb from Haryana qualified for the Asian Junior Championships after wining the 5000m race on the opening day of 12th Federation Cup National Junior Athletics Championships here on Friday.

The morning session today witnessed some noteworthy performances in the 5000m race with Abhishek Pal (Assam), Jatinder Kumar (Punjab) and Sharwan fighting it out in a keen battle in the junior men`s category. Abhishek, the bronze medalist in last year`s Asian Youth Games at Nanjing in 3000m, led the race initially. However the 17-year-old runner received stiff challenge in the second half of the race from Jatinder and Sharwan. At the waning stages of the race, Sharwan, a junior camper who made a last minute entry here, was in a commanding position and went on to win the race in a thrilling finish with a time of 14 minutes 54.51 secs - a time that take him on the Indian Team to this year`s Asian Junior Championships at Chinese Taipei next month. Jatinder (14:55.24) and Abhishek (14:56.23) took the remaining two positions on the podium. In women`s 5000m race, Maharashtra`s Sanjivani Jadhav, a double gold-medalist in the inaugural Asian School Track and Field Championship at Kuantan (Malaysia) last year, was a pre-race favourite. The 17-year-old lived-up her billing by clocking 17:11.27 for the title. In that process she also erased the previous meet mark (17:30.48) that stood in the name of Sahanara Khaturn of West Bengal in a big margin. Another Maharashtrian, Janabhai Hirve finished third in 18:07.58 while the silver medal in this event went to Madhya Pradesh`s Neha (17:46.43). Sanjivani, in spite of winning the gold, was unhappy about her performance as she could not make the Asian junior qualification standard of 16:32.02 whereas the World junior grade stands at 16:40.