National junior athletics: Shahrukh Khan, Deepika finish games with record-breaking performance
Aparna Roy set a national meet record in U20 100m hurdles with a timing of 13.85s
New national records were created in the Under-16 category as Shahrukh Khan won the boys 2000m and Deepika breached the 45m mark in javelin by throwing 48.21m on the final day of the 36th National Junior Athletics Championships at the Sarusajai Stadium in Guwahati on Wednesday.
Khan clocked 5:27:87sm, which is a national record for his age category. He broke the record set by Vikas (5:31.87) in the year 2016.
Abhin Bhaskar Devadiga and Ancy Sojan won the men and women's 200m crowns respectively.
Devadiga raced to the finishing point in 21.34 seconds and won the event for the second time within a month. He had also won gold at the Federation Cup Junior U20 Athletics Championships in Bhopal.
Meanwhile, Sojan completed her sprint in 24.51 seconds to win the event ahead of Taranjeet Kaur.
Though triple jumper Praveen Chithravel could not achieve the 16.01 mark, which he had a fortnight ago at the junior Fed Cup, he clinched the gold medal. In two of his six attempts, he could not even go past the 14m-mark as he was struggling to find his rhythm.
However, a lack of competition in the category ensured that he finished at the top spot.
In the U18 1500m, Arjun Waskale won the event with a meet record timing of 3:50:38, bettering the erstwhile record of 3:53:63 made by Shankar in 2016.
One of the promising youngsters, Aparna Roy claimed gold in U20 100m hurdles with a timing of 13.85s. She beat her previous national meet record of 14:00s set at Mangalgiri in Karnataka in 2019.
She trains at the Kerala State Sports Council under elite coach PB Jaikumar. However, she will be looking to participate in heptathlon events for better results in the future as informed by her coach.
“Aparna is apt for hepta. Instead of concentrating only in hurdles and 100m, she can make it in hepta and for that, she will have to put more effort in jump events particularly in the high jump. She competed in the long jump event here where she finished a creditable fourth place. It's a good sign," he stated to Times of India.