Tamil Nadu boy V Praveen Muthukumaran emerged as the 'Fastest Man' in the South Zone Inter-State Junior Athletics meet winning the U-20 100m dash clocking 10.5 seconds.
AP is CH Sudhakar won the boys' U-18 100m in 10.9 seconds while Tamil Nadu's M S Arun won the U-16 event by clocking 10.8 seconds. Tamil Nadu R Naveen won the U-14 boys 100m race in 11.3 seconds.
National youth record-holder KT Neena opened the proceedings with a meet record in 5000m timing 25: 03 minutes to erase state-mate A.M. Binsy's year-old record of 27:10.72 minutes set in Kochi last year.
Binsy, after giving a tough fight to the international athlete in the initial stages of the race, finished second here also bettered her previous mark clocking 25:51.8.
The zonal meet, in its silver jubilee year, witnessed hot and humid conditions prevailed on the first day of competitions which commenced at Dr. MGR Stadium in Race Course, Madurai.
Braving the conditions, 15-year-old S. Saravanan, a 10th standard of S.B.O.A. Higher Secondary School (Coimbatore) sailed over a new height of 1.93 m to make the hosts Tamil Nadu proud.
Kerala's young shot putter Megamariya Mathew heaved the 3 kg iron ball to a new distance of 10.26 m in the under-14 section for girls.
