Toor won the title in shot put; Elakkiyadasan and Shrabani Nanda became the 100m winners
Asian record holder Tajinderpal Singh Toor made headlines by winning the shot throw title with a brilliant effort at the National Open Athletics Championships here on Sunday, while VK Ilakkiadasan (Railways) and Shrabani Nanda of Odisha won the men’s and women’s category respectively in the 100m sprint. won the title. Toor, representing the Army, made it difficult for other players on a rain-hit day with a distance of 20.68 meters in his first attempt itself.
His two more attempts crossed the distance of 20 meters while among the other players, only Karanvir Singh could throw the ball from 20 meters away. The 27-year-old Ilakkiadasan of Railways dominated the men’s 100m race from start to finish and won in 10.37 seconds. Harjeet Singh of the Army stood second. Among the women, 31-year-old Shrabani Nanda of Odisha was trailing by 50 meters but then increased her pace to register a time of 11.55 seconds.
Himshree Roy of Railways finished second one second behind him. Tamil Nadu’s Archana Susindran (11.58 seconds) finished third, while multiple international medalist Hima Das (Assam) finished last among eight players. In the women’s 400m race, Tamil Nadu’s 23-year-old Shubha Venkatesan clocked her best time of 52.57 seconds. The top two places in the men’s event were two railway runners, 23-year-old Rajesh Ramesh (46.63 seconds) and Ayush Dabas (46.86 seconds).
In the men’s 1500m race, 17-year-old Parvez Khan (3 minutes 46.41) of the army won. Its title in women was won by Madhya Pradesh’s KM Diksha with a timing of 4:23.03sec. The railway trio of Swapna Barman, Soumya Murugan and Sonu Kumari finished in the top three spots in the two-day heptathlon competition. Swapna (5798 points) topped five out of seven events to finish first with more than 400 points.
