Gurpreet wins gold, over-aged Sanjay disqualified at Junior Federation Cup

Distance runner Sanjay Kumar of Tamil Nadu was disqualified today after he was found over-aged following his second place finish in the 5000m for U20 Men on the inaugural day of 16th Federation Cup National Junior Athletics Championships here today.

Haryana's 3000m Junior National Champion Gurpreet Singh won the event in 14 minutes 46.51 secs. Last month, he had finished eighth in the senior Federation cup at Patiala clocking 14:37.97.

In the current season only two other Asian runners, Taku Miura of Japan (14:21.81) and Chinese Xinxin Wang (14:27.47) have been credited with faster timings than the Haryana lad.

Following Sanjay Kumar's disqualification, UP's Ajay Kumar Bind and Maharashtra's Dinesh Kumar, who clocked 14:53:65 seconds and 14:59:44 seconds respectively at Nehru Stadium here, won the silver and bronze medals.

Later in the evening, javelin thrower N Hemamalini brought some consolation to the Tamil Nadu camp by claiming the silver medal with a distance of 43.14m. Rajasthan's Sanjana Chaudhary successfully defended the title with an effort of 46.97m, that was more than 1 metre above her winning mark in Lucknow last year.

In the junior women's 10,000m walk, Uttarakhand's Roji Patel clinched the gold in 51:44.52, by improving her previous best of 52:26 that she clocked while finishing fourth in the National racewalking championships at New Delhi in February.

Incidentally, she is the younger sister of former junior international runner Indrajeet Patel.