Federation Cup: On Day 3, Army men rule the roost
Two steeplechasers, Jaiveer Singh and Naveen Kumar, met the qualifying standards for the Asian Athletics Championships , following their 1-2 finish on the penultimate day of the Federation Cup.
Both Army men initially had to tail former national champion Ramadas Ramachandran but the duo took control of the race as the laps ran out. However, it was Jaiveer, in 8:48.56, who went ahead to pip Naveen. Sachin of Maharashtra took the bronze in 8:58.13 while Ramachandran stopped the clock at 9:01.78.
However, the men high-jumpers and the women triple jumpers, expected to make the cut for the Wuhan event, disappointed. In the absence of Mayookha Johny – the national record holder in the triple jump – it was her statemate NV Sheena who took gold with a hop, skip and jump of 12.92 metres, well below her National Games gold-medal winning performance of 13.27.
In the men’s high jump Karnataka’s Harshith Sashidhar cleared 2.13m to win the gold. Suprith Raj of Karnataka and C Srineesh of Army were joint-holders of the silver medal. Haryana’s Preeti Lamba had won her maiden national title in women’s 3000m steeplechase with a timing of 10:48.86. Two-time national junior champion Maniram Patel won the 20 km racewalk in 1:29:51.
He had won bronze at Patiala in 2012, but failed to make the podium in the last two editions. His first senior national title came at the state championships at Bangalore four years ago. Hosts Karnataka lead the points table with 84.5 points.
