National senior athletics competition: Tajinderpal defends his crown, Jeswin bags gold

ODISHA: Indian athlete Tajinderpal Singh Toor defended his men's shot put title at the National Federation Senior Athletics Competition 2024 in Bhubaneswar, Odisha.

On Tuesday, the two-time Asian Games champion clinched the gold medal in men's shot put for the fourth year in a row after recording a season's best throw of 20.38m in his third attempt.

Tajinder holds the Asian and national record in men's shot put after he registered a throw of 21.77m at the Indian Championships in Bhubaneswar last year.

However, his attempt was recorded before the athletics qualification window for the upcoming Paris Olympics opened on July 1, 2023. He is yet to breach the Olympic shot put qualification standard of 21.50m.

Samardeep Singh Gill bagged the silver medal after recording a throw of 18.93m while Aryan Tyagi walked away with a bronze with his best effort of 18.07m.

Jeswin Aldrin, who is another national record holder, was in action in the men's long jump. He recorded a season's best jump of 7.99m but fell short of hitting the 8.0m mark once again this year.

Jeswin, who made the national record with an attempt of 8.42m at the Indian Open Jumps Competition in 2023, also failed to go past the qualifying standard of 8.27m for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Arya S clinched second place with 7.83m. Muhammed Anees Yahiya, who became the National Games champion last year, secured the bronze medal with an attempt of 7.81m.

In the javelin throw event, Bibin Antony, Vikas Yadav and Vivek Kumar all breached the 70m mark in the men's javelin throw qualifiers and finished in the top three.

They will compete with Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra, Asian Games silver medallist Kishore Jena and seven others in the javelin throw final on Wednesday.

Rosy Meena Paulraj won the gold medal in the women's pole vault after she cleared 4.05m. She fell just short of the meet record of 4.06m held by Krishna Rachan, who achieved it in 2019.

Apart from Rosy, Baranica Elangovan was the only other athlete to touch the 4.00m mark. She bagged a silver medal, while Mariya Jaison clinched the bronze medal with an attempt of 3.90m.

In the absence of national record holder Avinash Sable, who is in the US currently, Sumit Kumar stood victorious in the men's 3000m steeplechase. He won the gold medal by clocking 8:39.67s.

Dhuladev Baban Ghagar clocked 8:46.65s to win the silver medal, while Ankit Rajesh fell just short with a timing of 8:46.97s and settled for bronze.