The Hindu : Sport / Athletics : Smooth sailing for Jaisha

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Monday, Jun 16, 2008
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Smooth sailing for Jaisha

K.P. Mohan

Anil Kumar eliminated for false start

MADURAI: The 48th National inter-State athletics championships got off to a colourful start at the MGR Race Course Stadium here on Sunday.

Fireworks and dances dominated the early part of the evening session on the inaugural day after the long distance runners set a slow tempo in the morning.

O. P. Jaisha won untroubled in the women’s 1500 metres, running in front all alone throughout the race and eventually timing 4:24.08.

Sandeep of Haryana won the corresponding men’s race while Kashinath Aswale and Priti Rao claimed the distance titles.

Anil eliminated

The first-round elimination of Anil Kumar in the men’s 100 metres for two false starts was the shock of the day as heats were gone through in the short dash in both men and women’s sections.

With news trickling in from London of the splendid deeds of Indian distance runners in a meet at Watford on Sunday, the talk mostly centred around Olympic qualification, though no one here looked close to the standards required.

The results:

Men: 1500m: 1. Sandeep (Har) 3:50.77, 2. Prakash Verma (Del) 3:50.89, 3. Ranjan K. K. (Chhatisgarh) 3:53.89; 10,000m: 1 Kashinath Aswale (Jharkhand) 29:12.65, 2. Ajai Kumar Patel (UP) 29:27.03, 3. Soji Mathew (Ker) 2:48.26.

Women: 1500m: 1. O. P. Jaisha (Ker) 4:24.08, 2. Priyanka Singh Patel (UP) 4:27.58, 3. Kiran Tiwari (Uttarakhand) 4:31.88; 10,000m: 1. Priti Rao (Jharkhand) 36:23.62, 2. M. Sudha (TN) 38:08.59, 3. Manjusha C. A. (Ker) 40:08.30.

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