Lucknow: Javelin thrower Annu Rani smashed her own national record and in the process became the first Indian woman to cross the 60m mark on the third and penultimate day of the 56th Open National Athletics Championships here on Thursday.
24-year-old Railways’ Annu, who won a bronze in the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, threw the javelin to a distance of 60.01m to erase her own earlier national mark of 59.87m which she made in July during the National Inter-State Championships in Hyderabad.
Poonam Rani of ONGC won the silver with an effort of 56.73m while the bronze went to another Railwaywoman K. Rashmi with 51.56m.
In men’s jump, for the first time in Indian athletics history, all the top three finishers cleared 2.20m. Tejaswin Shankar of Delhi clinched gold with an effort of 2.22m while Chetan of Services and Sreenith Mohan of Kerala bagged the silver and bronze respectively by clearing 2.20m. In fact, Tejaswin added 5cm to his personal best to equal the meet mark of 2.22m held by Jithin Thomas since 2012.
17-year-old Tejaswin, who earlier this year won a silver in the South Asian Games in Guwahati, surprised many of his senior competitors to win the gold. In the process, he posted a world leading mark in the event in the Under-18 category.
American high jumper Vernon Turner was listed with better marks (2.24m) than Tejaswin in the current IAAF lists. However the US jumper does not have a verifiable date of birth to prove his standing, and hence Tejaswin would get the credit of being at the top of the IAAF list.
