Chitra, Gayathry set meet marks on opening day, National Junior Athletics championships

Bangalore: Defending champions Kerala dominated the opening day's proceedings in the 29th National Junior Athletics championships which got underway at Sree Kanteerava Stadium here today.

Two meet marks were obliterated today, both by Kerala athletes, as 17 finals went off as scheduled.

P U Chitra, the distance running talent from Palakkad, clocked 4 minutes 33.82 secs in junior women's (under-20) 1500m that erased Sunita Rani's 17-year-old meet mark of 4:35.0 from the record books.

Another young athlete, 13-year-old Gayathry Sivakumar made an easy sail over 1.55m in the girls' under-14 high jump for the first meet mark of the day.

In the under-16 division, boys high jump and girls long jump events witnessed keen competition.

Maharashtra's Anil Sahu was locked with Tamil Nadu jumper Mohamed Akkiel as both cleared an identical 1.95m with the former declared as winner in the boys' section.

Tamil Nadu's Priyadarshini took the top spot in long jump (5.63m) by just one centimetre from Rugma Udhayan of Kerala.

At the end of the opening day, Kerala were on top of table with 58 points, followed by Haryana (52) and Tamil Nadu (46).