Bhubaneswar: Two eventful days in the 62nd National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships at Kalinga Stadium here have seen a dozen athletes making the cut for the upcoming Hangzhou Asian Games in September.
Friday’s evening session featured an exciting duel between local favourite Srabani Nanda and Jyothi Yarraji of Andhra Pradesh in the women’s 100m final.
Jyothi, who trains at Odisha Reliance Foundation HPC, pipped Srabani to bag gold with a personal best time of 11.46 seconds. Srabani clocked 11.59 as both missed the Asian Games qualification mark of 11.42.
None of the men’s 100m podium finishers — Siva Kumar B (Tamil Nadu, 10.37 secs), Harjit Singh (Punjab, 10.45) and Elakkiyadsan K (TN, 10.47) – met the AG qualification time of 10.19.
In men’s 400m final, Kerala’s Muhammed Anas (45.76 secs) lost out to Sri Lanka’s Kalinga Kumarage (45.64) in the battle for gold. Kerala’s Muhammed Ajmal (45.90) finished third as all three beat the Asian Games qualification time of 46.17.
In women’s 400m, too, the top three – Haryana duos Anjali Devi (51.48 secs) & Himanshi Malik (51.76) and R Vithya Ramraj of Tamil Nadu (52.49) – did better than Asian Games qualifying mark of 52.96.
KM Deeksha of MP won gold in men’s 1,500m in a time of 4:06.07, ahead of Punjab’s Harmilan Bains (4:08.50) and Delhi’s Chanda (4:09.39).
All three qualified for Asian Games.
