Bhubaneswar: Long distance runner Narendra Pratap Singh bagged his second title at Khelo India University Games here Saturday.
G Kathiravan (Bharathidasan University) won the men’s 100m final race in a photo finish with M Kartikeyan (Bharathiar University). Both clocked 10.68 seconds but Kathiravan was shade faster than Kartikeyan.
In men’s 5000m race, Narendra Pratap Singh of Mangalore University bagged the gold, his second of the Games after the 10,000m win. He broke his own 5000m university record in the process.
His time of 14:18:19 was almost 10 minutes faster than his teammate Adish, who finished second.
It was also almost a minute quicker than the previous record that he himself had set at the Inter-University Games earlier this year.
“The 5k is my favourite event. Recovery was going to be the biggest challenge, and I was surprised by how good I felt today actually,” said the 23-year old B.Com student.
“The next stop is the Federation Cup of course, but to be honest I am really looking forward to the Nationals later this year,” he added.
Punjabi University’s Harmilan Bains added the 800m crown to the 1500m gold she won a day earlier. She won with a time of 2:06:40.
Krishna Kumar (Mangalore University) won the gruelling decathlon event, scoring 6210 points over two days.
In Greco-Roman wrestling, Saddam Kasim Shaikh, who won 60kg class gold, was Savitribai Phule Pune University’s only gold winner on Saturday. And that helped his university take their gold count to 16 and stay ahead of a surging Panjab University (15).
Punjabi University (10), Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak (9) and Jain University (8) completed the top five.
In the Saheed Nagar Stadium, Lovely Professional University’s judokas won two gold medals. Ritik (men’s +100kg class) and Anmol (women’s 78kg class) were the champions on a day when Deendayal Upadhyaya University and University of Delhi claimed one gold medal each.
PTI
