Tejaswin clinches gold medal, breaches decathlon Asian Games qualifying mark

BHUBANESWAR: Competing in decathlon for only the third time in his career, Tejaswin Shankar of Delhi breached the Asian Games qualifying mark en route to winning gold at the National Inter-State Athletics Championships here on Saturday.

Swapna Barman of Madhya Pradesh bagged the yellow metal in women’s heptathlon and also went past the Asian Games qualifying mark of 5654 aggregate points by gathering 5918 points. Agasara Nandini of Telangana also breached the Asian Games qualifying mark by aggregating 5703 points.

Jyothi Yarraji from Andhra Pradesh, gold winner in 100m, added the women’s 100m hurdles title to her kitty with a timing of 12.92 seconds as 12 athletes achieved the Asian Games qualifying mark (13.63s).

The day also witnessed an unfortunate incident as triple jumper Akhilesh of Karnataka suffered a nasty injury on his right leg – his front shin bone badly broken – during take-off and was taken to a local hospital in an ambulance.

The 24-year-old Tejaswin accumulated 7576 points to go past the Asian Games qualifying mark of 7500 points in the gruelling 10-event competition that was fought over two days (Friday and Saturday). Rajasthan’s Yamandeep Sharma was a distant second with 7165 aggregate points while Gokul S of Kerala took bronze with 6937 points.

“I am not complaining, it is tough weather, but we have to compete and we have to win. I will not take any credit. If the other decathletes had not pushed me in the 1500m (last event) and if I had not completed the race in the required time, I would not have won. I would want to break my gold into several pieces and share it with all the other competitors,” Tejaswin said.

Tejaswin revealed that national record holder S Siva of Tamil Nadu helped him by “coaching” from the sidelines on Saturday.

“Pole vault is an event I wanted to do well and national record holder Siva was my coach. He was helping me from the sidelines and telling me how to plant the pole. Pole vault is a technical event, so he helped me,” Tejaswin said.

In the men’s triple jump event, national record holder Praveen Chithravel (17.07m) of Tamil Nadu, Abdulla Aboobacker (16.88m) from Kerala and Eldhose Paul (16.75m), also of Kerala, finished first, second and third respectively as each one of them breached the Asian Games qualification mark of 16.60m.

India makes bid to host World U-20 Athletics C’ships

India has made a bid to host the 2024 World U-20 Athletics Championships in Bhopal in case Peru pulls out from organising the junior showpiece, which is allotted to the South American country, the national federation president Adille Sumariwalla said on Saturday. It is, however, not yet certain if India’s bid will materialise. “Peru originally backed out, so World Athletics called for bids and we applied. But I had a World Athletics meeting two days ago and it told me that Peru has said that it might come back as the host. So, I am not sure what is going to happen. The situation is a little fluid as of now,” Sumariwalla told reporters on the sidelines of the National Inter-State Athletics Championships here. “We will know on August 12-13, during the meeting of the World Athletics Council (of which he is a member). It will take a decision on whether Peru will still be the host or other countries will be in the fray. If Peru agrees to host the junior championships, World Athletics will go ahead with that.” India will not be the lone bidder even in case Peru loses the junior championships hosting rights as four or five other countries have expressed interest, Sumariwalla said.