Four national junior records fall on 3rd day

Bangalore: Four national records and three meet marks were, thursday bettered on an eventful third day of the 29th National Junior Athletics Championships at Sree Kanteerava Stadium here.

Haryana`s 15-year-old Sahil Mahabali was the cynosure of all eyes as he set a national record in long jump with a leap of 7.27m while defending his title in the under-16 division for boys. The Panchkula-based athlete started with a 7.08m effort in the first round and that was sufficient to ensure his gold in the event. Sahil produced a superb 7.22m in his second try that erased the meet and national record of V S Vineeth of Kerala by 3cm. Having secured the gold and the record, the Haryana lad made two easy jumps on the next two attempts before setting his big leap of 7.27m on the fifth round. Another national record came in the boys under-16 division when Bengal`s Chandan Bauri clocked a stupendous 48.24 secs in 400m that improved the previous mark by 0.9 secs margin. The two other national records came in under-14 age-group. Delhi girl Mahashri Baloda threw the 3kg iron ball to a new distance of 11.63m while Sanchay Kumar Paul of West Bengal clocked 11.19 secs in the 100m heats for the records. Sanchay went on to win the finals in a wind-aided 11.14 secs later in the evening. The meet records were bettered in junior boys` discus throw by Haryana`s Sachin (56.72m), M K Sinju Prakash of Kerala in pole vault (3.40m) and Husandeep Singh of Chandigarh (10.59 secs). Sinju missed V S Surekha`s national record by just 5 cm while Husandeep was just 2/100th of a second slower than Augustine Yesudas`s recent national mark. Karnataka girl G K Vijayakumari took the youth girls` 400m title in 56.75 secs that was faster than the winning time of junior girls` winner V V Jisha of Kerala (56.94s). Kerala continued at number one spot with a whooping 322 points followed by Tamil Nadu (180.5 pts). Uttar Pradesh and Haryana with 138.5 points each remain in the third spot at the end of the day`s proceedings.