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Athletics
By Avinash Nair
Railways' Neelam J. Singh, the queen of the discus ring, all set to heave to a new distance on the concluding day of the National Open athletic championships in Bangalore on Tuesday. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy
On the final day of the 43rd National Open athletic championship, organised by the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited, the 31 year old Railways' athlete touched 61.17 metres with her third throw at the discus ring to erase her own meet record of 59.18 metres set at Kolkata in 1998. "I am coping with an injury...even during the World championship I had shoulder problems, but now its a muscular pain in the lower back,'' said the unassuming Neelam, after her victory. "Bangalore has been a good venue for me always...but now my main priority is to consult a good doctor and get my back treated and get some rest before the Afro Asian games in the last week of Ocotber,'' signed off Neelam. Neelam was way ahead of the four-member field, with Harwant Kaur the `forever bridesmaid' coming up with a 55.00 metres throw for the silver. Neelam's incidentally was the lone record on this day, though Bahadur Singh did manage to equal his own mark of 19.59 metres in the shot put event. Bahadur, who started with two foul throws but mustered a 19.59 in his sixth, won the event that featured Shakti Singh, the silver medallist at the Asian Championship in Manila. Shakti barely managed a 18.69 metres effort in his fourth to secure the silver. B. Hemalatha of Railways made it a start to finish affair in the newly introduced 3000 metres steeplechase for women. As in the Federation Cup, where the event was introduced, the Karnataka girl had little competition though fellow Railway athlete Jaswinder Kaur did threaten at the halfway stage. L. Manjula, despite two bad falls at the water jump, managed to finish third. Saraswati Saha came round the corner strongly in the women's 200 metres to finish in 23.75 seconds for a fine double. Poonam Tomar came in second. Piyush Kumar, pipped to the post in the 100 metres by Vilas Nilgund of Karnataka, avenged that defeat in the longer sprint by clocking 21.29 seconds. J.J. Shobha kept her cool and winning sequence going to claim the heptathlon gold as well with 5733 points, just falling short of Soma Biswas' meet record of 5739 points. Soma looked well placed for the silver at the end of the sixth event in the gruelling seven-discipline event but suffered from cramps after the 350 metres mark in the 800 metres, the last event, and could not finish thus conceding the second spot to P. Bindu, also of Railways. Bindu finished with 4837 points to Soma's 4806 points. Services and Railways, as expected, took the team honours in the men's and women's section respectively, even as Railways emerged the overall champion. V.S. Surekha and Naunidh Singh of Police were adjudged the `best athletes' of the meet in the women's and men's section. Anju Bobby George, the bronze medallist in the women's long jump at the Paris World championship, last month was felicitated by the organisers, the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited, with a memento. The results:
Men:
Women: Overall team championship: Railways 343.5 points.
Team championship:
Individual champions:
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