Continental Tour: Animesh Kujur exerts himself to emerge 200m winner; Murali Sreeshankar, Shaili Singh too shine in respective events
BHUBANESWAR: After what has been a long and gruelling season, Animesh Kujur got pushed and then pushed himself to deliver in front of a packed stadium to win the 200m title ahead of South Korea's KO Seunghwan in a close race at the World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze level meet at Kalinga Stadium here on Sunday.
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The South Korean, who has a personal best of 20.45 seconds, kept pushing Kujur throughout the race but India's national record holder in 100 and 200m prevailed in 20.77 seconds. Seunghwan came second in 20.95 seconds while Ragul Kumar finished third in 21.17 seconds.
Asked how he managed to finally win it, Kujur said, 'My coach always tells me to maintain my form in the final stretch.
It is the last 50m where most athletes lose their form. However, I was able to hold it as the coach said and win it.'
Poll
Do you think Animesh Kujur can break his personal best soon?
Yes, definitely
Maybe, if he stays healthy
No, he might struggle
While he did claim the title, the timing was nowhere close to PB of 20.32 seconds. He did sound a tad disappointed but now his focus is on giving his best at the Worlds for which he will qualify on the back of the ranking points.
Moreover, what might have hindered his performance on the night is the fact that he caught a mild cold after coming back from Europe.
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Hopefully, he will be able to take care of it ahead of the Inter-state meet where he will have to perform in similar weather conditions.
He however did enjoy competing in front of the huge crowd but did feel some pressure too.
'I didn't exert too much during the heats because I was just aiming to qualify. However, I was under a bit of pressure to perform in the final in front of such a big crowd and in my home track,' said Kujur, who did start the 100m heats in the morning but did not finish.
Meanwhile,
Murali Sreeshankar
saved his best for the last as he won the long jump title with a final leap of 8.13m, which was his season's best. As a result, Shahnavaz Khan was left heartbroken after he had managed to take the lead following his fourth jump of 8.04m, which was also his PB. Lokesh Sathyanathan meanwhile came third with a leap of 7.85m.
Among the other big names who won as expected in the men's section were Mohammad Afsal in men's 800m with a time of 1:46.60 and Abdulla Aboobacker, who grabbed the men's triple jump title with a leap of 16.53m.
Among the women, Shaili Singh won the long jump with an effort of 6.28m,
Annu Rani
took the javelin title with a throw of 62.01m and Abinaya Rajarajan grabbed the top spot in 100m in 11.57 seconds.
However, the big surprise was Sachin Yadav's failure in the men's javelin as failed to cross the 80m-mark. 22-year-old Rumesh Tharanga from Sri Lanka walked away with the honour with a throw of 86.50m. It wasn't only his PB but he also bettered the World Athletics automatic qualification mark of 85.50m.
India's Shivam Lohakare finished second with 80.73m while Sumedha Ranasinghe, also from Sri Lanka, settled for third spot with 80.65m.
As expected, Malaysia's Muhd Azeem Fahmi won the men's 100m title in 10.35s. But the other shock came in the very end as India's 4x400m relay team was beaten by a young Sri Lankan quartet in a photo finish.
Ramraj twins disappoint:
It wasn't a great outing for the Ramraj twins as Vithya was disqualified from the 400m event after a false start while her sister Nithya competing in the 100m hurdles crashed with the third-last hurdle and failed to finish the race. At that moment, she was leading the race, but the crash left her reeling in pain on the track. Vithya confirmed that her sister had a fracture on the left leg as the duo left for the hospital with their coach Nehpal Singh to get an MRI scan.
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