The Hindu : Sport / Athletics : Railway athletes dominate

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 05, 2007
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Sport

Sport - Athletics

Railway athletes dominate

Special Correspondent

VISAKHAPATNAM: Athletes from Indian Railways dominated the 41st national cross country championship at Ukku Stadium here on Sunday making a clean sweep of the men's and women's events.

In other events, Maharashtra won three, Uttar Pradesh two, and Uttarkhand and Kerala one each.

In the men's 12 km race, S. Raghunath of Railways got the gold clocking 38:01:01, ahead of teammate Santosh Kumar Patel. After trailing initially, Raghunath took charge in the penultimate lap of the six-lap course and won handsomely.

Railways won its second gold through Pampa Chanda in the women's 8 km race. After a watchful first lap, she surged to the front and held on easily till the finish. This was followed by Sunil Kumar's gold who also edged out teammate Kashinath Aswale in a closely fought men's 4 km race. The Railways rounded off through Jhuma Khathun's narrow win in the 4 km race for women.

Indian Railway's chief coach and manager N. Rami Reddy was elated that his team won the championship for the first time, ending the supremacy of Services which had to be content with a solitary silver medal in the meet.

The results:

Men: 12 km: 1. S. Raghunath (IR) (38:01:01), 2. Santosh Kumar Patel (IR), 3. G. Irappa D. Akki (Ser). 4 km: 1. Sunil Kumar (12:09.7), 2. Kashinath Aswale 3. Arun D'Souza (all IR).

Women: 8km: 1. Pampa Chanda (29:52.4), 2. Preethi L. Rao 3. H. Sangini Devi (all IR). 4 km: 1. Juma Kathun (14:53.8), 2. Rupinder Kaur, 3. Sangeetha Yadav (all IR).

Boys: U-20: 8 km: 1. Arvind Kumar Yadav (UP) (26:32.2), 2. Sandeep Negde, 3. Prigal Gogali (both Maharashtra). U-18: 6 km: 1. Suresh Kumar (19:56.4), 2. Samsher Bahadur Patel (both UP), 3. Jaybir Singh (Haryana). U-16: 3 km: 1. Bind Jiva Lal (8:35.8), 2. Kumar Patel Ranjit (both UP) 3. Ramniwas (Har). U-14: 2 km: 1. Rakesh Kumar (Har) (6:40.6), 2. Rajkumar Pal (UP), 3. Lijoman (Ker).

Girls: U-20: 6 km: 1. Rohini Raut (23:12.2), 2. Monika Raut (both Mah), 3. Saloni Chowdary (UP). U-18: 4 km: 1. Swati Gadhve (Mah) (15:10.92). 2. Rameswari M.V., 3. Sukanya V.S. (both Ker). U-16: 3 km: 1. Shobha V.V. (Ker) (10:09.4), 2. Reema Patel, 3. Arti Yadav (both UP). U-14: 2 km: 1. Thara M.D. (7:28.5), 2. Akshaya K.S. (both Ker), 3. Sunitha K. (Mah).