Bengal high jumper Swapna Barman stole the limelight as she created a national junior record on the second day of National Junior Athletics Championships here today.
Kerala's M N Nasimudheen attained World Junior Championships qualification standard in the boys' 100m hurdles at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium.
Swapna, who won the inaugural Asian Schools Athletics Championships gold in Kuantan, Malaysia, in September accounted for the first national record of the championships as she scaled 1.71m in the youth (Under-18) girls' high jump.
She improved Kavya Muthanna's nine-year-old National Youth Best by one centimetre.
Nasimudheen, a 12th standard student of St George's Higher Secondary School at Kothamangam in Ernakulam district, became the first athlete of the meet to attain the qualifying standard for the World Junior Championships to be held in Eugene, United States, next July as he stopped the clock at 14.24 secs in the qualifying heats in the afternoon.
Later in the evening, Nasimudheen won the finals in a bit slower time of 14.38 secs.
The home state had something to cheer as Shashidhar Harshith rewrote the meet mark in boys under-20 high jump as he cleared 2.13m, another one centimetre improvement of the previous record jointly held by Omvir Singh of Rajasthan (in 2001 at Bangalore) and Lakshmanan Yogaraj of Tamil Nadu (in 2008 at Mysore).
At the end of the second day, Kerala continued to lead the table with 167 points, followed by Uttar Pradesh (87.5) and Tamil Nadu (73).
