The Hindu : Sport : Jora Singh betters decathlon record

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 03, 2006

Sport

Sport

Jora Singh betters decathlon record

K.P. Mohan

Jora Singh. — FILE PHOTO

NEW DELHI: Jora Singh and P.J. Vinod tallied better than the national record in decathlon as the Federation Cup athletics championships went through an otherwise dull day's proceedings at the Nehru Stadium here on Thursday.

Decathletes are sloggers who rarely get the attention they deserve. Especially so in India and in a meet of this nature where there was no crowd to speak of nor the odd announcement to keep track of the gruelling schedule that they were going through, it was no surprise that very few knew of the achievement of Jora and Vinod.

Jora Singh, the BSF sub-inspector from Bhiwani, Haryana, compiled 7502 points while Kerala's Vinod, despite suffering an injury, tallied 7382 points. Kulwinder Singh's national record set in the National combined events championship in Chennai last year was 7325 points. The third place qualifying mark for the Commonwealth Games stands at 7,630 points.

Kulwinder, the man who bettered Vijay Singh Chouhan's 1972 Munich Olympics mark of 7306 points in Chennai, had given up after three events on the opening day on Wednesday due to a knee injury. He was the favourite though both Jora and Vinod were rated high enough to be in contention or even for a record.

Jora registered personal bests in long jump with 6.72m (previous 6.66m) and pole vault, with 4.50 (previous 4.30). He had set an all-India Police record of 7246 points at the same stadium last November, which was his best till this day.

Vinod injured

Vinod suffered an ankle injury during pole vault and finished in pain. "I would have done better but for that injury," the Kerala man, two days shy of his 27th birthday, said. His javelin (46.54) was well below his best of 53.60 and his 1500 metres, at 4:41.00 was 14 seconds off his best.

Vinod, however, had personal bests in 100m (10.89), shot put (13.74) and 400m (48.98) as he considerably improved upon his previous best of 7091 points. A trainee of National junior coach, Suresh Babu, till a few years ago, Vinod had taken a year off decathlon last year, concentrating on triple jump.

K.M. Binu, back on track after missing the last season due to injury and who reportedly suffered a hamstring injury again this season, clocked 47.33s while winning his semifinal heat in the 400 metres.

In the women's 400 metres semifinals, with contests hotting up for possible places in the Commonwealth Games relay squad, 800m winner Pinki Paramanik beat the better-rated Chitra Soman in one of the heats clocking 54.18 secs. In the other Manjeet Kaur won in 54.26 secs.

The results:

Men: Long jump: 1. Amritpal Singh (P. Pol) 7.68, 2. Mahan Singh (Pun) 7.65, 3. M. Sarvanakumar (TN) 7.53; Decathlon: 1. Jora Singh (Har) 7502 pts (National record, previous 7325), 2. P.J. Vinod (Ker) 7382, 3. Ram Niwas (Har) 6997; 4x100m relay: 1. Karnataka 41.65, 2. Tamil Nadu 41.69, 3. BSNL 42.05.

Women: 100m hurdles: 1. Anuradha Biswal (Ori) 13.48s, 2. K. N. Priya (TN) 14.14, 3. Poonam Bhojanna (Kar) 14.23; Javelin: 1. Megha Pardeshi (Mah) 50.25m, 2. Suman Devi (UP) 49.71, 3. Saraswathi (TN) 47.71; 4x100m relay: 1. Kerala 46.75, 2. Delhi 48.29, 3. West Bengal 48.30.

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