Sport

Renjith takes triple jump title

— Photo: Vipin Chandran

Winning Smile: Railways’ Preeja Sreedharan clinched the women’s 10,000m title on Monday.

KOCHI: The weather was chilly, there was a steady drizzle too. Asian champion Renjith Maheswary went around asking for a T-shirt midway through the men’s triple jump competition at the 48th National Open athletics championship here on Monday evening.

The one Renjith carried had turned dripping wet. A few moments later, the National record holder felt his feet slip inside his spikes. Water had gone in. Despite these problems, Railway’s Renjith emerged smiling after the event.

He had won the gold after an intense battle with his teammate Amarjeet Singh and Services’ Bibu Mathew, both of whom had handed him humiliating defeats in the last few meets. Heavy rain almost all through the day made life difficult for the athletes. They were forced to compete without properly warming up, on a synthetic track which had sheets of water in many places.

Renjith opened with a 15.83 metre jump but Bibu went ahead with his next effort, 15.86. The Asian champion, with his fiancee, pole vault national record-holder V.S. Surekha cheering him wildly, took the lead with his second jump (15.91) which turned out to be the winning one.

Renjith’s National record is a huge 17.04m but this performance was better than his flop show at the Beijing Olympics (15.77). He had finished near the bottom in his qualifying group in Beijing.

Earlier, Olympians Surender Singh and Preeja Sreedharan won the men’s and women’s 10,000m, but with much slower times than their National records.

“I was too tired after so many months of training and so many meets,” said Preeja who will be running the 5,000m too.

P.T. Usha wore an anxious face while the 100m semifinals were on under a steady shower. “It’s too risky for the athletes. They won’t be able to warm up properly and could end up with a muscle catch,” said the former Asian queen.

There were a few requests to postpone the event but after consulting international federation (IAAF) officials, the championship’s technical delegate C.K. Valson gave the clearance for the sprint final.

The results: Men: 10,000m: 1. Surender Singh (Ser, 29:52.06s), 2. Ajay Kumar (Pol, 29:52.48), 3. Santosh Kumar (Rly, 29:55.68); Triple jump: 1. Renjith Maheswary (Rly, 15.91m), 2. Bibu Mathew (Ser, 15.86), 3. Amarjeet Singh (Rly, 15.80m).

Women: 10,000m: 1. Preeja Sreedharan (Rly, 34:13.40s), 2. Kavita Raut (ONGC, 36:15.30), 3. Preethi L. Rao (Rly, 36:18.70).

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