Chitra, Gayathry set meet records

Kerala athletes Chitra PU and Gayathri Sivakumar rewrote Meet records on the opening day of the 29th Junior National Athletics championships here Tuesday.

Chitra, gold medallist in the 3,000 metres at the Asian Schools championship in Malaysia earlier this season, set a Meet record in the 1,500 metres race for Girls under-20, with a timing of four minutes, 33.82 seconds that erased the old record of 4:35.00 set by Sunitha Rani of Punjab in 1996.

Sivakumar, the National high jump record holder in the girls-14 category, cleared 1.55 which was well short of her best of 1.59 that she had achieved earlier this year, but it was better than the Meet record of 1.52 by Maharashtra's Julie Badhi in 2010.

The results:

BOYS - 20: 1500 M: M Naresh (AP) 1; Anand (Haryana) 2; Albin Sunny (Kerala) 3. Time: 3mins, 59.63secs. Shot Put: Chaitanya Dabas (Delhi) 1; Surender Singh (Haryana) 2; Pradeep Yadav (UP) 3. Dist: 17.07M.

BOYS - 18: 1500 M: Ajay Kumar Saroj (Assam) 1; Shashi Bhushan Singh (WB) 2; Twinkle Tomy (Kerala) 3. T: 3:59.34.

BOYS - 16: 1000 M: Arshdeep Singh (Punjab) 1; Shahfaizal (MP) 2; Beant Singh (Delhi) 3. T: 2:31.93. Discus Throw: Sanjay Kumar (UP) 1; Abhishek Darali (Delhi) 2, Saddam Hussain (Delhi) 3. Dist: 47.70 M. High Jump: Anil Sahu (MAH) 1; N Mohammed (TN) 2; Geo Jose (Kerala) 3. Height: 1.95 M.

BOYS - 14: 600 M: V Barath (TN) 1; Heera Pal (UP) 2; D Srikanth (AP) 3. T: 1:27.09. Long Jump: Sunil (Haryana) 1; Salvin Saju (Kerala) 2; S Lokesh (Karnataka) 3. Dist: 6.41 M. Triathlon: Sarfaraj Nowaz (MAH) 1; Anil (Haryana) 2; S Sam Sakiya (TN) 3. Points: 19.36.

GIRLS - 20: 1500 M: PU Chitra (Kerala) 1; Monika Chowdary (MP) 2; Safeeda (Kerala) 3. T: 4:33.82 (New Meet Record; Old 4:35.00 - 1996 by Sunitha Rani, Punjab). Discus Throw: Suman Devi (Punjab) 1; Manisha (Haryana) 2; Jyothi (Haryana) 3. Dist: 40.75 M.

GIRLS - 18: 1500 M: Jyothi Saini (Punjab) 1; Preethi Mehta (Uttarkhand) 2; Rishu Singh (MAH) 3. T: 4:53.28.

GIRLS - 16: 1000 M: Durga Pramod (MAH) 1; Neetu Kumari (Jharkhand) 2; Ankita Chowdary (Uttarkhand) 3. T: 3:03.03. Long Jump: S Priya Darshini (TN) 1; Rugma Udayan (Kerala) 2; Anita Das (WB) 3. Dist: 5.63 M.

GIRLS - 14: 600 M: L Samyashree (TN) 1; Kamaljeet (Haryana) 2; P Kavya (AP) 3. T: 1:39.55. High Jump: Gayathry Shivakumar (Kerala) 1; C Druthi (Karnataka) 2; S Ananthi (TN) 3. H: 1.55 M. (NMR. Old: 1.52 M, Jullie Badhi, MAH, 2010). Triathlon: Toomy Vaishnavi (Karnataka) 1; S Samyuktha (TN) 2; Divyanshi Shukla (CHD) 3. P: 16.38.