Sudha Singh improves meet mark in steeplechase

Sudha Singh improved her three-year old meet mark in women's 3000m steeplechase en route to winning a gold on the third day of the Federation Cup Senior Athletics Championship here today.
London Olympian Sudha clocked 10 min 13.83 secs while Wahida Rehman (CRPF) was a distant second in 10:52.43.
Haryana's Jaiveer retained the men's 3000m steeplechase title with a time of 8:57.86 after he logged in a battle with Rajasthan's Naveen Kumar (8:58.38) in most part of the race.
Meet record-holder Ramachandran (8:44.33) of Tamil Nadu is currently nursing an injury and could not compete here.
Chandrodaya Narayan Singh also successfully defended his title in hammer throw. Although today's performance was almost 2m less than his last year's performance and meet record of 67.78m, no one could come nearer the 65.88m mustered by him in ball and chain event.

National champion Kamalpreet Singh of ONGC, who registered a season's best 66.15m while taking a silver medal in the Aggie Open at Davis (California) last month, could manage only 63.98m here for the second place.

Another Haryana lad Parveen Kumar avenged his last year's defeat to Bineesh Jacob in pole vault. Kumar scaled 4.80m to win the event while Jacob was 10 cm shorter.
Long jumper Ankit Sharma was the third athlete to defend the title with a leap of 7.91m. It was the second best this season by an Indian after Kumaravel Premkumar's 7.95m in Tamil Nadu state meet at Madurai recently.

Aided by three Kerala-origin athletes, the women's sprint relay title went to Chattisgarh in 47.40 secs. Andhra Pradesh team edged Tamil Nadu to win men's relay gold in 41.06.