Anu Kumar of Uttarakhand grabbed the first gold medal of the inaugural Khelo India School Games, even as Tamil Nadu won two of the six gold medals on offer on the opening day of the athletics programme.
While Tamil Nadu athletes emerged as the most successful on the opening day, the rest were shared between Uttarakhand, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
Anu Kumar, who trains at the sports college in Raipur and is a past 800-metre silver medallist for India at the World School Games in France, won the boys' 1,500m final comfortably with a time of 4 minutes and 4.77 seconds.
An established middle distance star at the junior level, Anu, who took the 800m silver in 1:53.59 seconds in France, has in the past run below four minutes and at these Games.
He is aiming for the 800m and 1,500m double. Anu dominated the race pushing B. Mathesh of Tamil Nadu and Sandeep Kumar of Uttar Pradesh to the silver and bronze medals respectively.
The girls' 1500m saw Kathiriya Shraddha of Gujarat cross the tape first, but following a protest from one of the other teams, she was disqualified as the judges deemed that her statemate illegally paced her in the final lap.
The judges awarded the gold to promising Kerala star C. Chanthini, who clocked 4:50.81.
In the field events there were some good performances in the boys' shot put and triple jump events.
Abhishek Singh of Uttar Pradesh won the shot put with an excellent throw of 18.73 metres while Praveen of Tamil Nadu won the triple jump in his sixth attempt with 15.22m.
Abhishek Singh had four successful throws beyond 18 metres with the best of 18.73m in his second last attempt winning him the gold.
He had two other good throws of 18.54m on the last attempt and 18.38m in his second shy. Kartikay Deswal (Madhya Pradesh) bagged the silver with his sole 18 metres plus mark of 18.29.
In boys' triple jump, C. Praveen won with 15.22 metres in his sixth jump, while Sachin Gujjar (UP) was second with with 14.46m and Akash M. Varghese (Kerala) was third with 14.27m.
Haryana girls excelled in the shot put with two medals out of three. Pooja won the gold with a best of 13.88m while the bronze went to Rekha with a best effort of 13.20m.
Ajenci Susan of Tamil Nadu claimed the silver with 13.39m. Pooja dominated the event with three of her throws better than the silver medallist.
In girls' triple jump, J. Coleshiya was the winner with a best leap of 12.29m. Sandra Babu (Kerala) was right behind her in second place at 12.27m and PM Tabitha (TN) was third with a best of 11.95m.
--IANS
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