Sport - Athletics

New high for TN juniors

CHENNAI: It was the first time that Tamil Nadu was winning the boys’, girls’ as also the overall honours in a junior National athletics championship. The recently concluded junior Nationals in Jamshedpur has thus helped Tamil Nadu break new grounds.

An elated President of the TNAA, W.I. Davaram said at a function organised on Friday to felicitate the athletes who came up with this fine show, that the impact of the good performance was seen in the selection of probables for the National camp for the Youth Commonwealth Games scheduled from October 12 to 14 in Pune. “There are 10 athletes from Tamil Nadu in the list, which is praiseworthy,” he said.

Among those selected was G. Gayathry who had created a new National record in the 100m hurdles in the under-18 girls section. A trainee of the Prime Sports Academy and a student of B.Sc Computer Technology in St. Joseph’s College of Engineering, Gayathry had also won a silver in triple jump. The point to note is that her 12.51m effort in triple jump had also bettered the existing record.

The others in the probables list are K. Anandhi, J. Hemashree, Sindhuja, Sajitha Banu, L. Surya, Thilagavathy, Nikhil Chittarasu, A. Rositto Sax and J. Preeth.

Mr. Davaram noted that at the junior level the State has been making an impact over the last few years but expressed concern that this was not the case at the senior level. Much of it was because of the academic curriculum, he felt. “We at the Association level are trying to find ways to change this trend,” he said. The coach of the Tamil Nadu team, Jayakumar Raja said doping tests were done for the medal winning athletes and “all our athletes emerged clean.” The team was complimented for this. —Special Correspondent

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