The Hindu : Sport / Athletics : Surender Singh rewrites record

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 11, 2007
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Sport

Sport - Athletics

Surender Singh rewrites record

Amitabha Das Sharma

KOLKATA : Surender Singh of Army created a new meet record in the men's 5000m to brighten up a drab opening day as the XIIIth Federation Cup athletics got underway here at the Salt Lake Stadium with more news of fancied names dropping out.

Surender clocked 13: 51.64 seconds, the best timing ever by any athlete on Indian soil, to eclipse the record of Gulab Chand (14:01.33s) set in July 1998.

Jharkhand's Kashinath Aswale, who also bettered Chand's mark, took silver ahead of S. Raghunath.

In the women's 5000m, favourite Preeja Sreedharan of Kerala led from the start to win with a timing of 16: 07.93 seconds. Maharashtra's Kavita Raut, coming back after an injury, did well to win silver.

Rain is a pain

Showers dampened the enthusiasm further before the start of the evening session. The throwing events turned out to be a disaster. The women's hammer throw event had to be scratched as it had only two participants. The men's shot put had only three participants and the event was perfunctory completed with Sourabh Vij of Deli winning the gold with a throw of 18.26m.

K.M. Binu, the 400m men's National record holder, also joined the list of dropouts. Interestingly, the Kerala contingent is without an official manager.

In the absence of Binu, Sarish Paul of Army recorded the best time in the heats with Vinay Chaudhary (Uttar Pradesh) and V.B. Bineesh following in that order. Francis Sagayaraj (Army) and Sinimol Paulose (Jharkhand) moved into finals of the men and women's 800m with a comfortable win in heats.

Susmita in lead

In absence of J.J. Shobha, Susmita Sinhga Roy of Bengal led in the heptathlon event with 3307 points after four events (100m hurdles, high jump, shot put and 200m).

Sinimol M.P. (Kerala, 2953) and V. Leelavathi (TN, 2804) are behind Susmita.

The results:

Men: 5000m: 1. Surinder Singh (Army) 13:51.64 (NMR, OR: Gulab Chand (U.P.) 14:01.33, 1998), 2. Kasinath Aswale (Jhar) 13:54.42, 3. S. Raghunath (TN) 14: 04.58.

Shot put: 1. Sourabh Vij (Del) 18.26m, 2. P.B. Giri (Army) 17.65, 3. Ramesh Kumar (Army) 14.77.

Women: 5000m: 1. Preeja Sreedharan (Ker) 16:07.93s, 2. Kavita Raut (Mah) 16:36.47, 3. Preeti L. Rao (Jhar) 16:45.25. High jump: 1. Sahana Kumari (Jhar) 1.80m, 2. Tintu Verghese (Ker) 1.63, 3. Mallika Mondal (Ben) 1.63.