Rajasthan Kheta Ram virtually earned a ticket for Incheon Asian Games as he won the men's 500m race with a meet record on the opening day of the 18th Federation Cup National Senior Athletics Championships here today.
Kheta Ram clocked a creditable 13:49.17 to win the race and eclipse the seven-year-old meet mark of 13:49.17 in the name of Surender Singh.
ONGC runner Suresh Kumar (13:53.58) and Tamil Nadu's G. Lakshmanan (13:57.07) took the next two places while defending champion Nitender Singh Rawat (Uttarakhand) ended up in eighth place with a timing of 14:50.02.
Inter-State Meet champion Inderjit Patel missed a podium finish as he was fourth with 14:22.99. Incidentally both Kheta Ram and Suresh Kumar bettered the qualifying norm (13:54.11) fixed by Athletics Federation of India for selection guidelines for the Asian Games.
O P Jaisha of Punjab defended her 5,000m title clocking a noteworthy 15:54.21, the fastest time by an Indian woman this year and a tremendous improvement from her last year's winning mark of 16:39.43.
National record-holder Preeja Sreedharan (Kerala) finished second with 16:23.07 while the bronze medal went to Maharashtra's Swati Gadhave (16:46.46).
National record-holder Tintu Luka wanted to preserve herself for the IAAF Continental Cup in Moracco next month as one of the four Indians in the Asia-Pacific team and hence skipped the qualifying round race in women's 800m.
Pramila Yadav from Uttar Pradesh was the fastest (2:22.49) qualifier while Sini A Markose (2:22.81) and inter-state meet champion Sushma Devi (2:25.49) won the other two heats. Lauka's Kerala teammate and training partner Jessy Joseph could not finish her race.
Long jumper Kumaravel Prem Kumar, who fared badly in the Lucknow inter-state championships by failing to enter the finals, made it this time by leading the qualifiers with a leap of 7.42m.
