In the end it was well worth the wait. And, for Inderjeet Singh, a lengthy delay of nearly 90 minutes for the start of the men’s shot put was hardly a bother, despite being a severe test of temperament.
On the second day of the athletics events of the 35th National Games at the University stadium here, the 26-year-old from Haryana not only shattered the long-standing meet record of 19.38m but also, more significantly, touched a personal best of 20.14m.
Sharing the honour of being the star of the evening was Madhya Pradesh’s Ankit Sharma, a wiry 22-year-old who leapt past the 8m-mark in the men’s long jump becoming only the fifth Indian to cross the magical distance after T.C. Yohannan, Sanjay Rai, Amritpal Singh and K. Premkumar.
Premkumar, incidentally, was one of Ankit’s rivals on a balmy Tuesday evening, but could only manage 7.68m while taking a distant second behind Ankit’s 8.04m.
The shot-put final should have commenced at about the same time as the long jump decider. But with the organisers realising only at the last moment that the shot made available to the putters (125mm diameter) was short of the standard dimensions (130mm), it was a mad scramble thereafter to source the equipment, leaving the athletes warming up for the next hour and-a-half. The change was necessitated by the fact that using a smaller shot would expose the putters, who train with the standard shot, to the risk of injury.
A bronze medallist at the last year’s Incheon Asian Games, Inderjeet was in the lead right from the start before hurling the iron ball beyond the 20m-mark for the first time in his career. His earlier best was 19.89m, achieved at the 2014 Federation Cup.
“I just wanted to get past the 20m-mark today as I had come close to it several times through the last one year or so and failed miserably then. For me, there was no off-season as I had stayed focussed with my preparation for these Games,” said jubilant Inderjeet.
Ankit, who has been training under SAI coach N.V. Nishad Kumar at the LNCPE over the last three years too had a great day as he came up with a terrific series after starting with a modest 7.44m. He kept improving before going past his career best of 7.91m (Federation Cup 2013) with a third attempt of 7.96m. He hit 8.04m before Ankit returned to jump 7.93m and 7.98m through his last two efforts.
Abhishek N. Shetty (Karnataka) won the decathlon with a two-point margin over Kerala’s V.V. Raneesh while Monika Choudhary (UP) trampled upon Sini A. Markose’s aspiration of winning the women’s 1500m in front of her home crowd.
Odisha also finished the day with a gold medal through Sarita Singh who won the women’s hammer throw.
Sarita’s team-mate, Dutee Chand, improved upon the existing Games mark while easing to victory in the women’s 100m heats and semifinal.
The results:
Men: Shot put: 1. Inderjeet Singh (Har), 20.14m NMR ; OR: 19.38m, 2. Satyendra Kumar Singh (UP), 18.24m, 3. Om Prakash (Har), 17.95m. Long jump: 1. Ankit Sharma (MP), 8.04m NMR ; OR: 7.79m, 2. K. Prem Kumar (TN), 7.68m, 3. S.E. Samsheer (Kar), 7.46m. Decathlon: 1. Abhishek N. Shetty (Kar), 6805 points, 2. V.V. Raneesh (Ker), 6803, 3. Muhammed Hafse (Ker), 6675.
Women: 1,500m: 1. Monika Choudhary (UP), 4:22.01, 2.Sini A. Markose (Ker), 4:23.03, 3. Sushma Devi (Har), 4:24.01. Shot put: 1. Navjit Kaur (Pun), 15.67m, 2. Manpreet Kaur (Pun), 14.43m, 3. Harkirat Kaur (Chd), 13.85m. Hammer throw: 1. Sarita Singh (Odi), 56.47m, 2.K.A. Rachana (Pun), 56.08m, 3. Riti Dhiman (UP), 55.60m.
