National Athletics - Surekha vaults to record

NEW DELHI: For most of her coaching sessions in the last decade, Railways’ VS Surekha had to travel all the way from Chennai to New Delhi as her hometown doesn’t have training facilities for pole vault and her coach is based in the Capital. She missed training for two years in last four years due to personal reasons.
Despite the odds, she stole the show at the National Open Athletics Championships on Tuesday by winning the pole vault gold with a national record.Before the start of her event, there was no doubt about who would emerge victorious. Surekha came to the competition as the holder of the national record and as the only Indian woman to have crossed the 4m mark in the sport. She had no trouble leaving the field behind but kept on trying to set a new record. She overtook her national record of 4.08m first with an attempt of 4.15m and tried to improve it further by raising the bar to 4.25 but failed to clear it.
"I have done better marks in practice.
My initial target was 4.15m. After that was achieved, I got a little complacent,” Surekha said. The silver medallist KC Dija, also of Railways, finished a distant second at 3.60m.
In women’s 3000m steeplechase, In cheon Asian Games gold medallist Lalita Babbar was expected to engage in a bitter battle with long-time rival Sudha Singh at the Nehru stadium. But Lalita pulled out after a few laps to hand Railway's Sudha an easy win in 10:08.50m, a new meet record. "I came here to this competition without much training so I did not go all out as it might have led to an injury.
I was feeling a bit uncomfortable while landing on the water pits. So I am happy with the final result," Sudha said.
In men’s steeplechase, the fancied Naveen Kumar of Services too failed to repeat his Incheon performance, a bronze medal, as he was pipped to the gold by fellow Serviceman Jaiveer Singh. "They did not win the event, rather I lost it," Naveen, who won the bronze medal, said.
"During Diwlai, I had a fall during training in which I hurt my ankle. Considering that, I am happy to have finished on the podium." Naveen’s bronze came in 9:00.78m while Jaiveer took the gold in 8:53.85. Sachin Patil won the silver.