The Hindu : Sport : Sunitha sprints to gold

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 02, 2006

Sport

Sport

Sunitha sprints to gold

Special Correspondent

— Photo: A. Shaikmohideen

Sugadev Singh... putting up a golden performance.

PALAYAMKOTTAI: Athletes from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, led by sprint queen Sunitha Varghese, took three out of the seven golds that were decided on the third day of the 66th all-India inter-university athletic meet, organised by the Manomaniam Sudaranar University, at the St. John's College Stadium here on Wednesday.

The brightest performance of the evening was the splendid come-back-from-behind win eked out by the pint-sized Sunitha in the women's 100m final.

It looked as if the pre-race favourite and junior international Pavneet Kaur had the race virtually sewed up as she held on to the lead that she had established midway through. But Sunitha showed tremendous reserves of strength to catch up with Pavneet towards the end and lunged at the tape in a jumbled finish with her adversary.

There was considerable tension, as the outcome of the race remained unclear for a while before photo-finish pictures adjudged Sunitha the winner at 12.68s, one-hundredth of a second ahead of Pavneet.

It also proved to be a great day for Punjab University's Sukhdev Singh who took the shot put gold with a heave of 17.71m off his fifth attempt and Santhosh Hosmani (Karnatak), who cruised home to an easy win in the 400m hurdles.

Overall, the day proved to be dampener as none of the winners could match the existing meet records in their respective events

The results (all finals):

Men: 100m: 1. G. Manikavasagam (Madras) 11.03s, 2.Varun Sabarval (CCU) 11.16, 3. Arun Goel (Del) 11.16s; 400m hurdles: 1.Santosh Hosmani (Karnatak) 53.56s, 2. Jayesh B. Nair (Calicut) 54.35, 3. S. Puyal Balachandran (Annamalai) 55.05s; High jump: 1. Manoj T. Thomas (MGU) 2.00 m, 2. P. Elankumaran (Madras) 2.00, 3. S. Virendran (Anna) 1.95m; Shot put:1. Sukhdev Singh (Punjab) 17.71m, 2. Om Prakash Singh (Punjabi) 17.01, 3. Pushpinder Singh (Maharishi Dayanand) 16.61m; Decathlon: 1. Manjinder Singh (GNDU) 5954 points, 2. Sajan P. Shamsuddin (MGU) 5920, 3. Sundar (Maharishi Dayanand) 5807.

Women: 100m: 1. Sunitha Varghese (MGU) 12.68s, 2. Pavneet Kaur (JMI) 12.69, 3. Shini Rajan (Calicut) 12.76; 400m hurdles: 1. Shalin Joseph (MGU) 1:01.27, 2. Geetha Roby (MGU) 1:02.17, 3. C. Shiji John (Calicut) 1:02.53.

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