Anu Kumar of Uttarakhand grabbed the first gold medal of the Khelo India School Games as Tamil Nadu bagged two of the six yellow metals on offer on the opening day of the athletics competition here today.
While Tamil Nadu athletes took two gold medals, the rest were shared between Uttarakhand, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here.
Anu Kumar, who trains at the Sports College Raipur and is a past 800m silver medallist for India at the World School Games in France, won the 1,500m final comfortably in 4:04.77 seconds.
An established middle distance star, Uttarakhand's Kumar has in the past run below four minutes. He is aiming for 800m-1500m double.
Kumar dominated the race, pushing B Mathesh of Tamil Nadu and Sandeep Kumar of Uttar Pradesh to silver and bronze medals.
The girls' 1500m saw Kathiriya Shraddha of Gujarat cross the finishing line first, but following a protest from one team, she was disqualified as the judges deemed her compatriot in the final lap illegally paced her.
The judges awarded the gold to Kerala's promising 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 18.73m while Praveen of Tamil Nadu won the triple jump in his sixth attempt with 15.22m.
Abhishek had four successful throws beyond 18 metres with the best of 18.73 in his second last attempt which gave him the gold. He had two other good throws of 18.54m on the last attempt and 18.38m in his second try.
Kartikay Deswal (Madhya Pradesh) bagged the silver with his sole 18 metre-plus mark of 18.29m.
In the boys' triple jump, C Praveen won with 15.22 m in his sixth jump, while Sachin Gujjar (UP) with 14.46m was second and Akash M Varghese (Kerala) 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.
In the girls' triple jump, J Coleshiya was the winner with a best leap of 12.29m, while 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.
Day 2 of the athletics competition will see nine more medals being decided tomorrow.
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