Half-miler Johnson misses Rio qualification by a whisker

Kerala half-miler Jinson Johnson caught the attention of spectators on the second day of the 56th National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships here at the G.M.C. Balayogi Stadium with his scintillating performance in 800m on Wednesday.

The 25-year- old runner, who hails from a small village near Kozhikode, showed real guts to make the Olympic grade.

Led by Sajeesh Joseph, who acted as a pacer, Jinson ran a very fast first lap in everyone's amusement. Joseph pulled out after the half-way stage that left Jinson to complete the remaining part of the race at his own pace.

When the results were announced Jinson looked visibly disappointed as he missed the Rio standard narrowly despite running the third fastest 800m race by an Indian.

Jinson clocked 1:46.43 while the qualification mark was 1:46.00.

"Jinson ran the first 200m very fast that caused him slower down at the final stages of the race" opined his coach Kunhi Muhammed.

"I was expecting competition from my fellow runners, at least till the 600m. However lack of challenge was one of the factors for missing the qualification" revealed Jinson after the race.

Jinson's previous best 1:47.56 came two months ago at the Federation Cup in New Delhi.

Another athlete who missed the Rio QM was triple jumper Renjith Maheswary. The former Asian champion tried his best to reach 16.85m.

However, he could not find his rhythm in the first few rounds this evening. He delivered his best on the final round of the completion by leaping to 16.56m.

His Kerala teammate A V Rakesh Babu (16.20) and Bheeshm Singh, representing Manipur (16.16), finished in that order behind Renjith.

Much was expected from the shot putters. However a slippery circle, due to intermittent rain, hampered the chances of delivering their bests. Asian champion Inderjeet Singh, who already qualified for the Olympic Games with a toss of 20.65m, clinches the gold medal today with 19.28m throw.

Punjab's Tejinderpal Singh, who clinched an upset win over Inderjeet in the Federation Cup at Delhi with a whooping distance of 19.93m and expected to make the cut here, could do only 19.21m to finish second. His state-mate Jasdeep Singh went home with the bronze in 18.48m, whereas national record-holder Om Prakash Singh Karhana finished outside the podium (18.39m).

Odisha's Purnima Hembram, former Asian junior heptathlon champion, pocketed the gold in women's 400m hurdles clocking 59.27 secs. Ayana Thomas, representing Delhi, was a close second in 59.63s.

In 3,000m steeplechase, Haryana lad Naveen completed a 'hat-trick' of victories with a time of 8:44.33 while Parul Chaudhary (Uttar Pradesh) took the top spot in the women's division in 10:46.92.

Haryana received another gold through Ankit Saini, who garnered 6,807 points to win the grueling decathlon event.