Kujur, Chithravel mild up the Federation Cup
New Delhi: After flirting with Amlan Borgohain’s 200m nationwide file of 20.52s for a lot of final season, Animesh Kujur lastly ran the quickest half lap by an Indian on Thursday, within the course of defending his crown on the ongoing Nationwide Federation Athletics Championship in Kochi and making the reduce for this 12 months’s Asian Championships for which the qualifying mark stood at 20.53s.
Coming into the race as one of many main challengers to the erstwhile nationwide file of 20.52s — set in the identical competitors three years again — the 21-year-old Kujur clocked a formidable 20.40s to complete forward of Borgohain (20.80s) and Ragul Kumar (20.85s). That is additionally the primary time in six makes an attempt that Kujur has crushed Borgohain in a World Athletics-recognised meet.
The race ended up being the quickest 200m sprint on Indian soil with 4 sprinters dipping underneath 21 seconds. Moreover the three medallists, Karnataka’s Manikanta Hoblidhar ran 20.91 seconds to take the fourth spot.
Working in Lane 5, Kujur was regular off the blocks earlier than accelerating on the bend. He opened a decisive lead within the dwelling stretch and led the final 60m to take the title and the file. His now-familiar impersonation of Lightning Bolt duly adopted.
“I had a sense that I might get a great time after the race earlier within the day. I felt like I received a very good push at present, particularly across the 100m mark. I need to thank my coach, Odisha authorities and my complete workforce at Reliance Basis for all the time supporting me,” Kujur stated after the race.
He fell wanting the World Championships qualifying mark of 20.16 seconds however has now skilled his sights on the elite occasion. “My focus is on the World Championships,” he stated.
Kujur’s victory doesn’t come as a shock contemplating his latest kind. He received the gold medal on the Uttarakhand Nationwide Video games in February with a time of 20.58 seconds. In reality, Kujur had carried out a golden treble in Dehradun, successful the 100m, 200, and 4X100m relay races with ease. All three outcomes ended up being the Video games file — 10.28s in 100m, 20.58s in 200m, and 39.47s in relays — though he missed the then 100m nationwide file by 0.04s and the 200m mark by 0.06s.
Chatting with HT after the Nationwide Video games, Kujur had expressed his need to turn out to be the quickest Indian ever. “I don’t chase information. I need to be the quickest Indian ever, that may handle the information,” he had stated.
Kujur adopted up that golden marketing campaign with a 200m win on the Indian Open Athletics Meet in Chennai earlier this month the place he timed 20.63 seconds.
His coach on the Reliance Excessive Efficiency Centre in Bhubaneswar, Martin Owens, believes Kujur remains to be a piece in progress and has the potential to achieve the place no Indian has ventured earlier than.
“Animesh is an eight-year undertaking. He needs to go underneath 10s and 20s, and he’s succesful, however that received’t occur in a single day. It’s going to take a variety of effort from him to get there. I need to see him on the 2032 Olympics, for certain,” Owens had instructed HT in an earlier interplay.
Kujur’s performances, over the previous season, underline his regular progress. He got here near breaking the 200m mark final 12 months as properly when he clocked 20.62 seconds to win the Federation Cup in Bhubaneswar, which made him the second-fastest Indian of all time behind Borgohain.
He then did 20.65 seconds within the males’s 200m closing on the Inter-State Athletics Championships in Panchkula earlier than repeating the time on the India Open U-23 Athletics Championships. Kujur additionally clocked 20.57s on the All India Inter College Athletics Meet final December, however for the reason that competitors is just not recognised by World Athletics, the mark wasn’t ratified.
Chithravel meets Worlds mark
Hangzhou Asian Video games bronze medallist triple jumper Praveen Chithravel equalled his personal nationwide file of 17.37m and certified for the World Championships to be held in Tokyo this September. The marker was set at 17.22m.
The 23-year-old Chithravel, representing JSW, logged his greatest leap on his third try and take the gold. He had first set the nationwide file in Havana in Might 2023.
“My plan was to file a leap of 17.20m plus at present,” he stated. Abdulla Aboobacker was second with a leap of 16.99m whereas Mohammed Muhassin was third with a leap of 16.28m.
After a below-par 2024 the place he crossed the 17m-mark solely as soon as in addition to ending twelfth in his qualifying spherical on the Paris Olympics, Chithravel has began the season properly. He received gold on the Uttarakhand Nationwide Video games in February with a modest 16.50m earlier than logging a 17.13m effort on the Indian Open Jumps Competitors in Bengaluru in March for a second-place consequence.
In ladies’s lengthy leap, Shaili Singh cleared 6.64m to win the gold and break the 23-year-old meet file of 6.59m, set by her mentor Anju Bobby George. Ancy Sojan (6.46m) and Moumita Mondal (6.45m) completed second and third respectively.
