Mankirat sets new meet record in National Junior Athletics

Mankirat Singh from Ropar district of Punjab stole the limelight with a new meet record in boys' under-16 shot put when he came up with an immaculate throw of 16.91 metres on the penultimate day of the 12th National Inter-District Junior Athletics Meet here today.
His effort was watched by the entire stadium in rapt attention as it erased the existing meet record of 16.65m by Shakti Solanki of North-West Delhi district.
Incidentally, Solanki still owns the National record in the boys under-16 shot put event, which stands at 17.89 metres.
Sirsa's Saddam Hussain took the second spot with a throw of 15.44m, while Juber Malik of Sonepat finished in third position with his best throw of 14.73m.

One of the major highlight of the day was the number of entries in the middle distance of boys under-16 category -- the 1000m event. There were as many as 222 participants in the event and the organisers had to conduct nine heats with almost 25 runners in each.
Meanwhile, in the boys under-14 long jump, Vishurt Tiwari of Jaunpur district (UP) clinched the title with a leap of 6.18m, while Shankar Singh from Sundergarh district in Odisha took the second position with an clean effort of 5.88m.
EK Ramin Haque of Cooch Behar district in West Bengal finished third place with a jump of 5.77m.

In the girls under-14 long jump, Pushpalata Murmu of Singhbhum district in Jharkhand was a close winner with an effort of 4.86m, while Chandana Karmakar of Purulia Manbhumsa district in West Bengal had to be content with the second place at 4.84m. Geeta of Mahendergarh district in Haryana finished in third place with her best jump of 4.62m.