Bhubaneswar: Heptathlete Purnima Hembram of Orissa wearing India colours kept herself firmly in medal contention after the completion of four events at the Kalinga Stadium here Saturday.
The local athlete topped the 200m dash and shot put charts, finished fifth in the high jump and was second in the 100m hurdles to end the day on 3252 points. Leading the scoring table is her West Bengal compatriot Swapna Barman (3512) while Japanese Meg Hemphill (3210) is a close third.
In the last event of the day–200m dash, Purnima took the top position by clocking 24.86 seconds and grabbed 900 points. In the 100m hurdles, she bagged 1014 points with a timing of 13.75 seconds. She garnered 867 points in high jump crossing a distance of 1.71m. In the shot put the confident athlete took the top position after throwing the iron ball to a distance of 11.84m. She got 651 points for her effort.
Swapna (980, 1054 and 621) did amazingly well in the high jump to be on top. She came close to breaking the national record of 1.92m when she crossed the bar at 1.86 metres. However, she failed to jump 1.89m in three successive attempts.
Among the three events yet to be completed are long jump, javelin throw and 800m. Purnima’s strengths are the javelin throw and the 800m. She will have to garner the maximum number of points in these two events to keep her chances of a podium finish alive.
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