Veteran sprinter Sameer Mon of Manipur put all his experience to use to clinch the 100 metres gold in 10.60 seconds on Day Three of the 56th national inter-state senior athletics championships in Hyde
Veteran sprinter Sameer Mon of Manipur put all his experience to use to clinch the 100 metres gold in 10.60 seconds on Day Three of the 56th national inter-state senior athletics championships in Hyderabad on Thursday.
Sameer, a member of the bronze-winning 4x100m relay quartet at the Delhi Commonwealth Games six years ago, had earlier won the inter-state titles in 2008 and 2011.
For Karnataka’s Reena George, a switch-over from 400m to the 100m proved successful as she capitalised on the absence of big guns like Dutee Chand and Srabani Nanda to win the women’s race in a modest 11.99 secs. The 22-year-old hails from Mysuru and is employed with the forest department.
It was Karnataka’s second gold medal of the day. Earlier, “vaulting doctor” Khyati Vakharia cleared a season’s best 3.80m to win the women’s pole vault.
Kerala hurdlers and triple jumper got their first-ever senior national gold medals.
In the women’s 100m hurdles, M. Sugina clocked a personal best 14.17 secs for the gold. Tamil Nadu duo of B. Dhanalakshmi (14.28) and D. Keerthana (14.33) secured the next two spots.
D. Sreekanth clinched the men’s 110m hurdles in 14.54 secs, upsetting pre-race favourite and defending champion Kuppusamy Premkumar from host state Telangana who clocked 14.60 secs for the silver. Triple jumper Shilpa Chacko brought the third gold for Kerala with a 13.22m leap.
