Hyderabad: Half-miler Jinson Johnson of Kerala and triple jumper Renjith Maheshwary missed out on Rio berths, on Day Two of the 56th national inter-state senior athletics championships being held at the GMC Balayogi Stadium here. Johnson ran the third fastest 800m race by an Indian to win the gold on Wednesday, clocking 1:46.43, but fell short of the Rio qualification mark of 1:46.00.
Maheshwary delivered his best in the final round by leaping 16.56m — the Rio mark being 16.85 meters — to win gold. His Kerala teammate A.V. Rakesh Babu (16.20) and Bheeshm Singh, representing Manipur (16.16), clinched silver bronze. In shot put, Asian champion Inderjeet Singh, who has already qualified, clinched gold with a modest 19.28m throw.
Earlier, the day saw some unfancied names make the most of the absence of big guns, who either training or competing overseas ahead of Rio. B. Soumya of Delhi hogged the limelight taking the women’s 20 km walk gold in a personal best time of 1 hour, 42 minutes and 55.24 seconds to improve her previous best by more than nine minutes. Tamil Nadu’s Siva Subramaniam scaled 4.90m to pocket the pole vault gold ahead of Parveen Kumar of Haryana (4.80).
