Rosy Meena Paulraj rewrites women's pole vault national record, again

Bengaluru: Tamil Nadu’s Rosy Meena Paulraj shattered the national record for women’s pole vault for the second time in 15 days when she cleared 4.21m to win the gold medal at the National Open athletics championships here on Saturday.

Rosy, who turns 25 in a fortnight, lit up the opening day with another sensational performance, exactly 15 days after clearing 4.20m to set up a new national record at the 36th National Games in Gandhinagar.

She had then gone past V S Surekha’s earlier national mark of 4.15m set in 2014.

Railways’ Ravina found redemption after some disappointing performances as she won the women’s 20km Race Walk with a new meet record time to boot.

She had started the year by being part of the Indian team which became the first to win a medal at the World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships in Muscat. With Amlan Borgohain staying away, Delhi’s 19-year-old Shivam Vashnav ensured that some of the spotlight would remain on the 100m sprints. When he clocked 10.74 seconds in the first round, there was no indication of what was to follow. He blazed the track to win his semifinal in 10.47 seconds and be the fastest qualifier for the final.

Himashree Roy (West Bengal) and Srabani Nanda were the fastest qualifiers for the final, clocking 11.52 seconds and 11.53 seconds respectively. Though Jyothi Yarraji (Andhra Pradesh) did not finish her 100m first round, Hima Das (Assam) battled through two rounds (11.74 and 11.78) to remain in the mix.

Services’ Mijo Chacko Kurian and Angrej Singh set up an engrossing men’s 400m final along with Railways’ Ayush Dabas and Rajesh Ramesh. The women’s quarter-mile final will feature Subha Venkatesan (Tamil Nadu) and R Vithya Ramran as the fastest qualifiers. With six runners qualifying with sub-54 second times, the final can be a very competitive race.

The results (finals): Men 20km Race Walk: 1. Suraj Panwar (Uttarakhand) 1:25:23.00; 2. Akshdeep Singh (Punjab) 1:25:26.00; 3. Paramjeet Singh Bisht (Services) 125:27.00.

Women Pole Vault: 1. Rosy Meena Paulraj (Tamil Nadu) (New National and Meet records. Old NR: 4.20, Rosy Meena Paulraj, Gandhinagar, 2022; Old MR: 4.15, VS Surekha, New Delhi, 2014); 2. Pavithra Venkatesh (Railways) and Baranica Elangovan (Railways) 4.00.

Discus Throw: 1. Paramjot Kaur (Railways) 50.81m; 2. Nidhi Rani (Railways) 50.29; 3. Neetika Verma (Uttar Pradesh) 49.70.

20km Race Walk: 1. Ravina (Railways) 1:34:55.00 (New Meet Records. Old: 1:38:30.00, Bhawna Jat, Ranchi, 2019); 2. Vandana (Karnataka) 1:37:19.00; 3. Munita Prajapati (Uttar Pradesh) 1:37:49.00.