Parul Chaudhary of Railways won her second gold medal beating Maharashtra's Komal Chandrakant Jagdale in the women's 3000m steeplechase final in the 60th National Open Athletics Championships at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Hanamkonda on Friday. Though Ram Baboo (Uttar Pradesh) was credited with the only national record-breaking performance when he won the men's 35km race walk in 2 hours 46 minutes and 31 seconds, it was the women's 3000m steeplechase that made for great viewing for the goodly crowd that turned up.
Railways' B Aishwarya claimed the women's long jump crown with an opening leap of 6.52m that propelled her among the top jumpers in the country.
For someone whose previous best effort was over 6.25m on January 3, 2020 and the best this season was 6.16m in the Railways trials, the 24-year old will have pleasantly surprised fans of athletics.
The results (finals):
Men - 3000m Steeplechase: 1. Shankar Lal Swami (Services) 8:46.05; 2. Mohammed Nur Hasan (Services) 8:50.00; 3. Balkishan (Services) 8:50.45.
110m Hurdles: 1. Tejas Ashok Shirse (Maharashtra) 14.09 seconds; 2. Sachin Binu (Services) 14.22; 3. Tarundeep Singh Bhatia (Services) 14.22.
High Jump: 1. Jesse Sandesh (Railways) 2.17m; 2. Bharathi Vishwanathan (Services) 2.17; 3. Sarvesh Anil Kushare (Services) 2.17.
Shot Put: 1. Karanveer Singh (Railways) 18.46m; 2. Devinder Singh (Punjab) 18.02; 3. Vanam Sharma (Rajasthan) 17.96.
35m Race Walk: 1. Ram Baboo (Uttar Pradesh) 2:46:31.00 (New National Record. Old: 2:49:12.00, Manish Singh Rawat, Ranchi, 2021); 2. Sagar Satishchandra Joshi (Gujarat) 2:53:43.00; 3. Surinder Singh (Punjab) 2:54:22.00.
Women - 3000m Steeplechase: 1. Parul Chaudhary (Railways) 9:51.01; 2. Komal Chandra Jagdale (Maharashtra) 9:51.03; 3. Priti Lamba (Railways) 10:22.45.
100m Hurdles: 1. C Kanimozhi (Railways) 13.54 seconds; 2. Aparna Roy (Kerala) 13.58; 3. K Nandhini (Tamil Nadu) 13.90
Long Jump: 1. B Aishwarya (Railways) 6.62m; 2. Sherin Abdul Gafoor (Tamil Nadu) 6.27; 3. Priyanka Kerketta (Railways) 6.05.
35km Race Walk: 1. Ramandeep Kaur (Punjab) 3:15.17.00; 2. Sonal Sukhwal (Rajasthan) 3:18:35.00; 3. Priyanka Patel (Uttar Pradesh) 3:27:56.00.
Mixed 4x400m Relay: 1. Tamil Nadu (T Santhosh Kumar, I Dhivya, R Vithya Ramaraj, P Abhimanyu) 3:26.22 (New Meet Record. Old: 3:27.93, Delhi team, Ranchi, 2019); 2. Punjab 3:27.49; 3. Delhi 3:28.01.