60th Kerala State School Athletic Championship: Three records tumble on Day 1

THENHIPALAM: Three meet records were bettered on the opening day of the 60th State School Athletic meet as Ernakulam leads the overall table with 58 points followed by Palakkad (40) at CH Muhammad Koya Stadium here on Saturday. Kalladi HSS, Palakkad, star C. Babitha hogged the limelight on Day One as she successfully defended her gold in the 3,000m senior girls' event with a meet record despite tough challenge from Ernakulam's Anumol Thampi. This was Anumol Thampi's first year in the senior category and Babitha's last year. Moreover, the race was predicted to be one of the bitterly fought and it lived up to the expectations. Though Anumol kept a narrow lead until the final 100 metres, Babitha's experience came in handy as she overtook her in the closing stages of the race and built a two-second lead to grab the yellow metal with a timing of 9:37.2.

Anumol clocked 9 min 39.5 sec and both had a better performance than the national record. "It was a tough race. If it was not Anumol, it would have not been challenging. I was able to clock better timing also," said the middle distance runner from Palakkad, whose forte is 1,500m running. The on-track rivalry between both the athletes will be extended to the 1,500m and 800m events also. The other two meet records came in throw events as Amal P Raghav bettered Shijo Mathew's two-year-old record with a throw of 44.09 m in senior boys' discus throw. Megha Mariam Mathew in the shotput broke 11-year-old record of Saranya J with a performance of 11.95 metre. However, she said, "I am not that happy with the result. I had 100 percent surety that I would be able to outperform the national record. I think I need to work out more."

Megha Mariam Mathew

In senior girls' long jump, Viny PV reigned supreme with a jump of 5.60 in her final attempt. Favourite Lizbeth Karoline Joseph had a bad day as she had to be satisfied with a lowly fifth place. In the sprint events, Usha School of Athletics struck three gold medals and a bronze. Abitha Mary Manuel in senior category, Sooryamol in the junior category and Elga Thomas in the sub-junior clinched the first place in 400m races rather easily. Aditya KT, another Usha trainee, had to be satisfied with bronze in the sub-junior category.