Before every throw, Tajinder Singh Toor borrowed a left shoe from his Punjab State-mate Navtejdeep Singh and went for his attempt. Was it some sort of lucky charm, one was curious to know.
“No, the circle was too slow, too rough, so I had to use his ‘fast’ shoe which can handle the rough area better,” explained shot putter Tajinder, the recent Asian Championships silver medallist, at the 57th National inter-State athletics championships here on Sunday evening.
The shoe helped but not as much as the Asian season leader Tajinder would have liked. The 22-year old won the gold without any difficulty with a 19.46m effort but he was still far away from the 20.50m he desperately needed to qualify for the next month’s World Championships in London.
“There were a few complaints about the circle yesterday, so we had the event in another circle today,” Bahadur Singh, the chief national coach, told The Hindu, virtually throwing up his hands with a ‘what can we do’ look.
With this being the last chance meet before the Worlds, athletes certainly deserved a better deal.
Meanwhile, Davinder Singh Kang, who had qualified for the Worlds earlier, won the men’s javelin with a first round effort of 81.84m that broke the meet record by over two metres.
Odisha won a double in the 200m, through its stars Amiya Kumar Mallick and Srabani Nanda, while Kerala’s Jinson Johnson and the young Lili Das took the men’s and women’s 800m.
The results: Men: 200m: 1. Amiya Kumar Mallick (Odi) 21.65s, 2. Vipin Kumar (Man) 21.85, 3. Parveen (Har) 22.01.
800m: 1. Jinson Johnson (Ker) 1:47.38s, 2. Manjit Singh (Har) 1:48.04, 3. Vishaamber (Kar) 1:48.64. Long jump: 1. Y. Muhammed Anees (Ker) 7.60m, 2. P.V. Suhail (Ker) 7.55, 3. Siddanth Nayak (Kar) 7.41.
Javelin: 1. Davinder Singh Kang (Pun) 81.84m MR, OR 79.67, Jagdish Bishnoi, 2000; 2. Ravinder Singh Khaira (Pun) 74.71, 3. Amit Kumar (UP) 74.43. Shot put: 1. Tajinderpal Singh Toor (Pun) 19.46m, 2. Jasdeep Singh (Pun) 18.48, 3. Navtejdeep Singh (Pun) 17.61.
20km race walk: 1. Sandeep Kumar (Har) 1:27:01.52s, 2. Jitendra Singh (Raj) 1:27:04.32, 3. Baljinder Singh (Pun) 1:29:38.72. Decathlon: 1. Dayaram (Raj) 6788 pts, 2. Ankit Saini (Har) 6651), 3. Theivendran (TN) 6512.
Women: 200m: 1. Srabani Nanda (Odi) 24.18s, 2. Anwesha Roy Pradhan (WB) 24.37, 3. Sonia Baisya (WB) 24.85.
800m: 1. Lili Das (WB) 2:03.46s, 2. Abitha Mary Manuel (Ker) 2:06.19, 3. Sipra Sarkar (WB) 2:07.48.
Long jump: 1. V. Neena (Ker) 6.29m, 2. Priyanka Kerketta (Jhar) 6.01, 3. Swapna Barman (WB) 6.00.
