National Open athletics: Sarvesh Kushare wins high jump gold, Anjali Devi breaks 400m meet record

Sarvesh Anil Kushare and Anjali Devi broke meet records at the 58th National Open athletics championships en route to winning gold medals in men’s high jump and the women’s 400m, respectively, on Wednesday.

Kushare, representing Services, leapt 2.24m (personal best) to erase the old meet record of 2.23m set by VS Yadav, last year in Chennai.

Kushare beat Siddharth Yadav of Railways and B Chetan of Services by a comfortable margin. Both Yadav and Chetan recorded a best jump of 2.16m on the day, with the silver medal going to Yadav by virtue of fewer failed attempts.

Anjali Devi, 20, of Haryana clocked 51.79 seconds to better the previous 400m mark of 51.90 seconds, recorded by former Asian Games silver medalist KM Beenamol at the 2002 edition of the tournament.

Anjali beat Prachi of Punjab (53.17 seconds) by nearly one and a half seconds. Chavi Sehrawat of Railways, who clocked 53.54 seconds, came third. Konomi Takesishi, who was part of a three-member Japanese contingent at Bhubaneswar, finished sixth with a time of 55.01 seconds.

Sanjeet Kumar of Services and A Chandrelekha of Tamil Nadu won the men’s and women’s 100m competitions.

Sanjeet clocked 10.39 seconds – 0.02 seconds short of the meet record – to beat B Siva Kumar of Railways, who recorded a time of 10.53 seconds. Vidya Sagar of Services, who clocked 10.54 seconds, was third.

In the women’s 100m sprint, 21-year-old Chandralekha clocked 11.47 seconds, to fall 0.05 seconds short of the meet record set by Saraswati Saha in the 2002 edition of the National Open Championships. The Tamil Nadu athlete beat S Archana (11.71 seconds) and Karnataka’s Reena George (11.75 seconds).

Asian Games bronze medalist PU Chitra, too, clinched the women’s 1500m gold. The 23-year-old, who was representing Railways, clocked 4:24:35 seconds to beat Shipra Sarkar (4:25:45 seconds) and Bihar’s Sugandha Kumari (4:30.00 seconds).

C Kanimozhi won the women’s 100m hurdles, clocking 13.71 seconds. R Nithya of Tamil Nadu, who clocked 13.99 seconds, won the silver medal. Purnima Hembram picked up the bronze medal with a time of 14.02 seconds.