BHUBANESWAR 27-Sep-2018
Murali Sreeshankar was the star performer on the third day of the 58th National Open Athletics Championships, setting a new national record en route a gold medal in the men’s long jump competition. The 19-year-old representing Kerala cleared a distance of 8.20m erasing the old mark of 8.19m set by Ankit Sharma at in Almaty in 2016.
Another bright performance on the day came through Murli Kumar Gavit who completed a golden double in men’s 5000m and 10000m. Gavit had won a gold medal in the first day of the competition in the 10000m and he followed it up in the 5000m today. Gavit,
representing Gujarat, clocked a relatively slow time of 14.35.96 seconds.
Commonwealth Games bronze medalist Navjeet Kaur missed out on the chance to complete a golden double in the women’s shot put and discus throw after she was beaten by Kamalpreet Kaur in the discus event. Navjeet, had won gold in the women’s shot put event on the opening day of the competition but was edged to silver medal by Kamalpreet Kaur on Thursday. Navjeet was leading until the final throw of the competition with a throw of 54.84m but fellow Railways athlete Kamalpreet, flung the iron disc to 56.11m in her final throw of the competition to secure the gold medal.
