Pole vaulter Surekha shatters her own national record

NEW DELHI: Railway woman V S Surekha bettered her eight-year-old pole vault national record in a stunning performance to add some spark in an otherwise largely uneventful National Open Athletics Championships on the third and penultimate day on Tuesday.
30-year-old Surekha soared to 4.15m to the surprise of the sparse crowd at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium to erase her earlier national record of 4.08m which she had set in October 2006 at Patiala.
The meet being the season-ending event, it was expected that the athletes would not be in their top form but Surekha, a mother of a four-year-old girl, was the exception as she left behind the disappointment of not making at Incheon Asian Games with a brilliant performance.
Another Railway woman K C Dija and Kiranbir of Police were distant second and third respectively on identical 3.60m. Surekha, who has dominated Indian women's pole vault scene, has broken her own national record many times in the past.
She missed out of Incheon Asian Games after clearing 4.05m at Federation Cup in August while the qualification mark set by Athletics Federation of India was 4.15m.
"I was extremely disappointed at missing out at Asian Games. At Patiala (Federation Cup), I was under pressure thinking about Asian Games qualification. But today, I don't have any pressure as their was nothing at stake," said Surekha, the wife of former national record holder triple jumper Renjith Maheswary.
"The atmosphere at the international class stadium here also helped me to scale the new height. Today's effort will give me the extra confidence to do well next year," she said.
In women's 3000m steeplechase, Railway woman Sudha Singh made the most of the pulling out of Asian Games bronze medallist Lalita Babar to win gold in 10:08.50, breaking her own meet record of 10:09.04 of last year.
Sudha was over half a lap ahead of teammate Priyanka Singh Patel who took silver in 10:35.86. Lalita started the race but pulled out after completing a lap.
Asian Games bronze medallist Navneet Kumar finished third in men's 3000m steeplechase which was won his Services teammate Jaiveer Singh in 8:53.85. Sachin Patil of Railways took the silver in 8:54.12.
However, another Asian Games bronze medallist Annu Rani lived up to her reputation by winning gold in women's javelin throw with an effort of 54.01m. Rupinder Kaur of Police won the silver with an effort of 52.26m while Railways S Saraswathy was third with 47.85m.
Men's discus throw was won by Arjun of Haryana by clearing a distance of 56.45m while Dharamraj (Services) and Vikas Punia (Railways) were second and third with efforts of 55.62m and 53.17m respectively.
Tamil Nadu's G Gayathry took gold in women's 100m hurdles while K Prem Kumar of Telangana won the men's 110m hurdles.
In men's high jump, S Harshit of ONGC bagged the gold with an effort of 2.17m while Jithin Thomas of Services and Ajay Kumar of Haryana took silver and bronze respectively.