Bhubaneswar: Jauna Murmu of Orissa won a silver medal in her pet 400 metres hurdles event on the inaugural day of the 21st Federation Cup National Athletic Championship at Patiala, Thursday. In the process she also created a new meet record.
Jauna clocked 57.51 seconds to finish second behind Kerala’s Anu R who bagged gold with a timing of 57.39 seconds. Anu’s statemate Arpita won bronze with a time of 57.39 seconds. Both Jauna and Anu broke the previous meet record of 57.60 seconds created by Shahebani Oram of Orissa in 2002 at Chennai.
Meanwhile Srabani Nanda, Dutee Chand and Amiya Mallick qualified for the women’s men’s 200 metres final. Both the events will come off Friday evening. , which will take place Friday evening.
The championship will run till June 4. The meet will also serve as the selection trial for forthcoming Asian Athletic Championship, which will be held in Bhubaneswar, July 6-9.
Orissa enter semis
Orissa entered the semifinals of the 22nd Senior Women’s National Football Championships after thrashing Pondicherry 5-0 in a quarterfinal match at Phagwara, Thursday. Orissa will meet Manipur in the semifinals Saturday.
Subhadra Sahu turned out to be the star of the match scoring in the 14th, 22nd and 77th minutes respectively. Sasmita Swain (39th) and Sasmita Ekka (64th) found the back of the net once each.
Sports administrator no more
Eminent sports organiser and former secretary of Chauliaganj Football Club Niranjan Lenka breathed his last at his residence in Cuttack, Wednesday. He was 58.
“He was a great sports organiser. His death is a great loss to Orissa football,” Football Association of Orissa (FAO) stated in their condolence message Wednesday.
PNN