Up and coming Maharashtra sprinter Aniruddh Kalidas bagged his maiden title after graduating recently to senior levels as he became the fastest man of the meet on the opening day of the 53rd National Inter-State Athletics Championship here today.
Aniruddh completed the 100m sprint in 10.61 seconds, followed by Vijayakumar of Tamil Nadu (10.63s) and Manikandan (10.64s).
Bengal's Asha Roy, a railway athlete, won the gold in women's 100m dash in 11.86 seconds. Kerala's Merlin K Joseh was second in 11.90secs while Sharadha of Tamil Nadu was third in 11.97secs.
In the women's discus throw, Krishna Poonia did not exert much as she clinched the gold with a modest effort of 56.73m. Seema Antil of Uttar Pradesh came second (51.70m) while Navjit Kaur pf Punjab (47.07m) was third.
The first event of the day, women's 5000m, witnessed national record holder Preeja Sreedharan being pushed to second spot by Punjab's O P Jaisha, a Keralite running under Punjab colours as she was married to a Punjabi.
Preeja did the front running in the initial stages of the race but gritty Jaisha left her behind in the last 200m to win the race in 17:27.24 secs. Preeja clocked 17:28.94 secs for the second place while 23-year-old Suriya Loganathan finished third.
The men's 5000m race was won Lakshmanan of Tamil Nadu in 4:15.39 seconds followed by Nitender Singh of Uttarakhand and Mohd Yunus of Maharashtra. Defending champion Indrajeet Patel of Uttar Pradesh finished a disappointing ninth.
