An established star burnishing her reputation and an unheralded athlete living his dream was the story of the first day of the national inter-state athletic championship in a nutshell. There was a meet record but new national marks failed to materialise at the Nehru Stadium here on Tuesday.
Krishna Poonia warmed up for next month’s Asian Championship by winning the discus gold with a modest effort of 56.73m, eight metres below her national best. The champion wasn’t perturbed though as she admitted to “competing with herself.”
“I need to do much better in Pune to reach the podium. There would be pressure but I’m confident of reaching 60 to 62, riding on home support,” Poonia said.
A routine day at the office for Poonia turned out to be remarkable for Aniruddh Kalidas Gujar, the newly-minted 100m champion. The sprint king of the meet ran the fastest race of his career in 10.61 seconds. It was a case of blood and glory for Aniruddh. He did indeed shed blood after finishing his job in the race everyone had been waiting for on Day One.
Aniruddh, an LIC employee from Satara in Maharashtra, had bruises all over his body as a result of a fall. But he was happy that the mishap happened after the race.
It is easier to deal with a fall when the gold medal is in the bag.
Aniruddh earned a ticket to compete at the Asian Championship in his home state regally. Maybe the extra ‘D’ in his name stresses the sprinter’s determination. He showed plenty of character to pull ahead of Tamil Nadu’s Vijaya Kumar with a classic dipping finish. Final positions were determined only after the intervention of high-definition cameras.
The gold in the women’s 100m went to Asha Roy of West Bengal. Roy had it nailed in 11.86s, leading comfortably from the 80m mark.
The only disappointment for the Eastern Railway sprinter was missing out on her personal best by 0.02 seconds.