Date:13/02/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/02/13/stories/2007021303121900.htm

Sport

Hari Shankar flies high

A. Vinod

HIGH SPIRITS: Hari Shankar Roy of West Bengal won the high jump event with a record to boot. — Photo: R. Ragu

Guwahati: It is one of the healthy rivalries in Indian athletics that has failed to attract the required attention from the media and perhaps even the keenest of the athletic aficionados in the country time and again.

Maybe, because the general trend is to pay more attention to the sprinters and long jumpers and also due to the fact that men's high jump has never really helped the cause of Indian athletics over the last several years.

On Monday, the second day of the athletic events of the 33rd National Games did see a good crowd at the Indira Gandhi Stadium, Sarasujai, the men's high jump competition seemed to have been dismissed totally by a large number of people though it was the event which brought home the most notable performance of the day.

Most also seemed to overlook the fight between Bengal's National Record holder Hari Shankar Roy and his arch rival, G. Benedict Starly of Tamil Nadu once again which ended in yet another hard-fought victory for the former and that too with a new meet record — the lone such effort of the day.

In fact, what immediately evoked memories was of a similar situation in which the two were engaged in a comparable battle, two years ago at the inter-State athletic meet in Chennai. Then, the two were tied with a new National Record height of 2.18m before the Bengal athlete collared the gold on the count-back.

The competition on Monday, though did not rise to such heights as was expected. But keeping their rivalry going, the duo was once again tied at 2.14m. Yet again it was a win for Roy, who after his Chennai performance had raised the bar to an enviable 2.25m at the first Asian All-Stars meet in Singapore, also in 2004.

First-time clearance

And what helped the Bengal athlete to confirm his superiority over his Tamil Nadu rival yet again was his first-time clearance of the new meet record height on his first attempt while Starly could clear the same only on his second trial. The old record of 2.13m, set by M. Lorens at Ludhiana in 2001, was cleared by both Roy and Starly but again it would be naturally credited only to the Bengal athlete.

Beyond the high jump pit, the other notable performer in the men's section was young S. Arunjith of Kerala who, after a poor start, strode to a memorable win in the 100m, clocking 10.66s. Arunjith, a trainee of coach Udayakumar at the SAI training centre in Kollam, was third behind Jagadish Basak and Vishal Saxena until the last 40m before he pressed down on the accelerator.

The 400m too produced a surprise champion as Bipin Mathew, left out from Kerala squad and thus representing Madhya Pradesh here, came back in a decent 47.34s to take the gold.

In the 110m hurdles, it was 1-2 for Tamil Nadu as P. Muthusamy and A. Karuppasamy struck gold and silver in that order ahead of Kerala's K.A. Harish.

In the women's section, Vinita Sahni (Uttar Pradesh) held back a late challenge from H.M. Jyothi (Andhra Pradesh) to win the 100m gold while Jasmine Joseph (Kerala), the inter-University gold medallist in Bangalore a few weeks back, took the 400m title with a career-best effort of 57.34s.

In heptathlon, Susmita Singha Roy (Bengal) was in the lead with 3108 points after the first day of competitions ahead of fancied J.J. Shobha (Andhra Pradesh), who had a tally of 2940.

The results:

Men: 100m: 1. S. Arunjith (Ker), 10.66s, 2. Jagadish Basak (Asm), 10.70s, 3.Vishal Saxena (UP), 10.73s; 400m: 1. Bipin Mathew (MP), 47.34s, 2. V.K. Pankaj (UP), 47.94s, 3. Vinay Choudhary (UP), 48.19s; 110m hurdles: 1. P. Muthusamy (TN), 14.61s, 2. A. Karuppasamy (TN), 14.93s, 3. K.A. Harish (Ker), 15.01s. 3000m steeplechase: 1. Om Prakash (SSCB), 9:01.89, 2. Sachin Patil (Mah), 9:02.36, 3. Arun D'Souza (AP), 9:03.85. Long jump: 1. Shiv Shankar Yadav (UP), 7.58m, 2. S.P. Singh (Pun), 7.56m, 3. Amritpal Singh (Jr.), 7.41m. High jump: 1. Hari Shankar Roy (Ben), 2.14m - New Meet Record; Old Record - 2.13m, M. Lorens, 2001, 2. G. Benedict Starly (TN), 2.14m, 3. Prince Jose (Ker), 2.05m. Discus throw: 1. Ramveer Singh (SSCB), 51.76m, 2. Amritpal Singh (Pun), 51.152m, 3. Vipendera Singh (SSCB), 49.86m. Women: 100m: 1. Vineeta Sahni (UP), 11.92s, 2. H.M. Jyothi (AP), 11.94s, 3. Rakhi Saha (Ben), 12.19s. 400m: 1. Jasmine Joseph (Ker), 54.74s, 2. S. Anbu Vimala (TN), 56.14s, 3. K. Mridula (AP), 56.17s. 100m hurdles: 1. Poonam Bojanna (Kar), 14.09s, 2. Anuradha Biswal (Ori), 14.09s, 3. P. Lakshmi (TN), 14.58s. 3000m steeplechase: 1. Sudha Singh (UP), 10:56.35, 2. Kamlesh Baghel (UP), 10:57.76, 3. Kiran Tiwari (Utd), 11:23.75.