The Hindu : Sport : Chinnappa repeats 2003 feat

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 26, 2005

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Sport - Sports : General

Chinnappa repeats 2003 feat

Special Correspondent

PROUD MOMENT: Kerala marathon champion H.A. Chinnappa along with 10km women's road race winner Preeja Sreedharan. — Photo: S. Mahinsha

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: H.A. Chinnappa (Services), the 2003 winner who had missed last year's race due to injury, overcame a close call from his team-mates, Nathuram and Surendra Kumar, to win the fourth Kerala marathon here on Thursday.

The 39-year-old Army Junior Commissioned Officer, who overtook his colleagues in the final approach leading to the finishing point at the Government Girls' Higher Secondary School, Nedumangad, clocked 2:28:49 to clinch a close and exciting race. He was awarded a cheque of Rs.1,00,000 and a gold medal for his effort. Nathuram finished just four-hundredths of a second behind Chinnappa, while Surendra, who finished third, was timed at 2:28:54.

Services' Sathya Prakash, Bining Lyngkhai and Pradeep Kumar took the fourth, fifth and seventh spots respectively.

`Conditions were hard'

A veteran of over 30 marathons, Chinnappa was excited as he met reporters later. "After the frustration of not being able to defend my title last year due to an injury, I am really happy that I could win here today. The conditions were quite hard but I knew that I could gun for the top spot once the race was past the 37km-mark. It would have been a lot more better if I had been able to finish under 2 hours and 25 minutes."

Preeja Sreedharan (Kerala) took the top spot in the women's 10 km road race ahead of team-mate M. Rameswari and Assam's Deepti Chutia. Kerala had another 1-2 in the boys' under-20 20km race when C. Ravi Kumar and V. Sunil took the first two spots in that order ahead of Tamil Nadu's J. Venkitesh. K.S. Sujamon won the 5km race for under-16 boys, while V.S. Sukanya clinched the girls' title.

The Chief Minister, Oommen Chandy, who was the chief guest at the valedictory function, gave away the prizes.

The results: Kerala marathon: 1. H.A. Chinnappa (Ser), 2:28:49; 2. Nathuram (Ser), 2:28:53; 3. Surendra Kumar (Ser), 2:26:54; 4. Sathya Prakash (Ser), 2:30:26; 5. Bining Lyngkhai (Ser), 2:34:42; 6. Soji Mathew (Rlys), 2:35:34; 7. Pradeep Kumar (Ser), 2:37:00; 8. S. Ratheesh (Ker), 2:37:50; 9. Dheeraj Parihar (Rlys), 2:40:27; 10. J. Narendran (TN), 2:40:45.

20km road race (boys' under-20): 1. C. Ravikumar (Ker), 1:13:39; 2. V. Sunil (Ker), 1:17:37; 3. J. Venkitesh (TN), 1:38:80.

10km road race (women): 1. Preeja Sreedharan (Ker), 42:43; 2. M. Rameswari (Ker), 43:35; 3. Deepti Chutia (Asm), 44:33.

5km road race (boys' under-16): 1. K.S. Sujamon (Ker), 15:48.07; 2. G. Biju (Ker), 16:25.60; 3. Nithin Abraham (Ker), 17:43.52.

5km road race (girls' under-16): 1. V.S. Sukanya (Ker), 17:49.50, 2. P.V. Nirosha (Ker), 18:06.13; 3. P.V.Deepthi (Ker), 18:09.01.

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