Upsets galore on second day of national athletics meet

Some of the defending champions in their respective events suffered reverses.

Hyderabad: Sunday was a day of upsets in the National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships as some of the defending champions in their respective events such as P Udayalakshmi, S K Mortaja and Sajeesh Joseph suffered reverses.

The day was also marred by Dharambir Singh`s suspension for evading dope test. The Haryana athlete, who won the men`s 100m event yesterday, was provisionally suspended by the AFI. In the women`s shot put event, Udayalakshmi from the host state went down to Punjab`s Patwant Kaur who tossed the iron ball to 13.76m. Udayalakshmi managed 13.35m for the silver while Bengal`s Suparna Ghosh ended with the bronze after an effort of 13.31m. Other defending champions who lost their gold status included Mortaja in 400m, Joseph in 800m and Ramachandran in steeplechase among men. The women`s 800m event between Tintu Luka of Kerala and Sinimole Paulose, who represented Karnataka this time, went down to the wire before Tintu successfully defended her title in 2:01.36. Sinimole timed 2:03.71 for the silver while another Keralite, S R Bindu, finished third in 2:09.53. In the men`s 800m event, veteran Ghamanda Ram of Rajasthan won the gold in 1:47.57, while Jinson Johnson from Chattisgarh was a close second in 1:47.80. Sajeesh bagged the bronze medal after timing 1:48.85. But the biggest surprise of the day came in men`s 3000m steeplechase when Manipur`s Th. Sanjit Luwang inflicted a rare defeat on defending champion and pre-race favourite Ramachandran. The northeastern athlete sprinted her way to a gold-medal finish after timing 8:47.09, just ahead of Ramachandran`s 8:47.58. In the decathlon competition, K Dileep Kumar of Marharashtra triumphed as the Army Sports Institute athlete garnered 6676 points as against his nearest rival Chandrahas Kushwaha of Uttar Pradesh who finished second. PTI