Services clinch overall title at 56th Athletics Open Nationals

Lucknow: As many as four athletes pulled off golden doubles as the curtains came down on the 56th Athletics Open Nationals where Services emerged as the overall champions here.

The highlight of the final day's action was a surprise win in triple jump by Army lad Malkit Singh.

The Airforce Sergent, just five days short of his 28th birthday, had only two valid jumps this afternoon.

Malkit, who earlier this month set a new meet mark of 16.47m during the Inter-Services championships, added 10cm to his personal best on the second round that sealed the gold.

He had another confirmatory 16.54m on his fourth try as no other jumpers on the field were near him during the whole competition.

His teammate Rakesh Babu was a distant second in 16.09m while three-time Olympian Renjith Maheswary (Railways) barely managed a place on the podium with a poor 16.02m. Renjith leapt 17.30m during the Indian Grand Prix at Bengaluru earlier this year.

In the morning, distance runners Suriya Loganathan and G Lakshmanan claimed their second gold medals through 10,000m victory.

Ace Karnataka sprinter H M Jyothi added the 200m gold to her earlier win in 100m.

Teammate Reena George once again claimed a silver in this event also. Middle distance star Ajay Kumar Saroj was the other athlete to win a double through 800m, upsetting top class runners today. His first win came in 1500m.