Bhubaneswar: Manisha Merel won a silver medal in the 32nd National Junior Athletics Championships at Nehru Stadium in Coimbatore, Thursday. She finished second in the girls’ U-16 long jump event with a leap of 5.42 metres. Kerala girls Ancy Sojan (5.58m) and PS Prabhavathi (5.38m) won gold and bronze medals respectively.
However, Orissa boys failed to impress on the first day. Hari Behera disappointed with a distant 10th place finish in the shot put while Lakhan Murmu failed to qualify for the final of the same event.
Eighteen athletes including nine boys and nine girls are representing the state in the four-day national meet.
Meanwhile Delhi boy Tejaswin Shankar smashed the 12-year-old national senior record in high jump with an effort of 2.26m while winning the gold. The 17-year-old Tejaswin achieved the rare feat of a junior athlete breaking the national senior record. The earlier national senior record was in the name of Hari Shankar Roy of West Bengal who had jumped 2.25m while winning a silver in the Asian All-Star Athletics meet at Singapore in 2004.
Twin losses
Rutuparna Choudhury of Orissa had to be satisfied with the runners-up finish after losing the finals in the girls’ singles and doubles events of the CLTA-AITA Super Series tennis tournament at Chandigarh, Thursday.
In the girls’ singles event final, Rutuparna lost to Prinkle Singh 4-6, 2-6. The duo of Rutuparna and Harleen Kaur lost to Kaavya Sawhney and Prinkle 5-7, 6-2 in the girls’ doubles final.
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