Manikanta H H of Services created a new men’s 100m national record on the opening day of National Open Athletics Championships in Bengaluru on Wednesday. The 21-year-old Manikanta clocked 10.23 seconds to win heat No 3 and qualify for the final. He erased the previous national record of 10.26 seconds which was in the name of Amiya Kumar Mallick of Odisha, set in 2016. “I was prepared to erase the 100m record,” an elated Manikanta said. “I’ve plans to further improve my performance in the final.” After a not-so encouraging performance at the National Inter State Athletics Championships held in June in Bhubaneswar, Manikanta was knocked out during the semifinals, but he bounced back during the Services Athletics Meet held recently in Hyderabad.
His gold-winning time in the Services’ competition was 10.31 seconds.
“I had trained hard for the departmental meet and won gold,” said Manikanta, who hails from district Udupi in Karnataka.
Manikanta was an all-rounder during his school days but started serious sprint training in 2018. He joined the army in 2020, which further improved his sprinting skills.
In the women’s 100m semis, Kamaljeet Kaur of Punjab (11.47 seconds), Giridharani Ravi Kumar from Tamil Nadu (11.46 seconds), and Sneha SS of Karnataka (11.47 seconds) emerged as strong contenders for the gold medal.
Maharashtra’s Tejas Shirse, representing Railways, clocked 13.72 seconds in the 110m hurdles heats to improve the meet record of 13.77 seconds, set by Siddhanth Thingalaya in 2011.
In the men’s discus throw, 28 athletes reported for the preliminary round, which was dominated by Gagandeep Singh of SSCB. His best throw was 52.96m while Manipur’s Oinam Singh was a close second with 52.82m.
Results: Women 10,000m: Seema (Himachal Pradesh) 33:26.90, Kavita Yadav (Railways) 33:35.57, Phoolan Pal (UP) 34:55.13.
Hammer throw: Anmol Kaur (Police Sports Control Board) 60.19m, Tanya Chaudhary (UP) 59.04m, Sarita B Singh 58.42m.
Men 10,000m: Dinesh (Maharashtra) 29:10.11, Mohan Saini (SSCB) 29:10.82, Sandeep Singh (SSCB) 29:11.21.
Pole vault Dev Meena (Madhya Pradesh) 5.05m, Shekhar Pandey (UP) 4.95m, Tanuj Kumar (Haryana) 4.85m.
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