Dev betters record but fails to qualify for Asian meet

For Dev Meena, Day 2 of the National Federation Senior Athletics Championship was a mixed bag of emotions. Happy that he won the pole vault gold medal while bettering his own national record, the Madhya Pradesh athlete went home with an empty feeling as he failed to qualify for the Asian Championships.

Meena improved his national mark by scaling 5.35 metres in Kochi on Tuesday. His effort was short of the Asian qualification mark of 5.51m set by the Athletics Federation of India. He bettered his own record of 5.32m, which was registered during the Uttarakhand National Games in Dehradun. “I wanted to raise the bar but there was light drizzle and I didn’t follow my coach’s advice,” a disappointed Meena said after his event.

In the hotly contested women’s 400m final, Rupal Chaudhary edged Vithya Ramraj to the tape to

win the gold medal.

Tamil Nadu’s Asian Games medallist Vithya was leading in the first 300m but could not sustain it as Rupal finished strongly on the home stretch to finish with a timing of 52.55 seconds. Vithya clocked 52.81, while Sneha K finished with 53.00. In fact, the top six finishers went under the Asian qualifying mark of 53.80.

“I just wanted to catch up and shifted to another gear as the first 200m was slow,” Rupal said after winning the gold medal. “I’m happy to have won the race.”

Vithya said she paid for the brutal pace in the first 300m. “I had no energy to move forward and had

to settle for second

place,” Vithya said.

Yarraji qualifies

India’s fastest female hurdler, Jyothi Yarraji, too expressed her satisfaction in winning the 100m hurdles gold with a time of 13.23 seconds to better

the Asian qualification time of 13.26 seconds.

Jyothi informed that she suffered a hamstring scare three weeks back so she did not push herself harder. “Kochi was my only chance to make the cut for the Asian meet. Hence, I had no choice but to

compete,” Jyothi said.

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