Sachin Kumar and Navjeet Kaur Dhillon shattered national junior records in men's discus throw and women's shot put respectively en route to winning gold medals on the second day of the 12th Federation Cup National Junior Athletics Championships here today.
The duo also qualified for the World Junior Athletics Championships at Eugene in the United States later this year.
18-year-old Haryana thrower, Sachin grabbed the top spot on his very first attempt by hurling the 1.75 kg disc to a superb 58.11m, bettering Punjab thrower Kripal Singh's earlier record by 1 cm.
His mark placed him on top spot on the current Asian junior rankings and 11th in world junior list and make him a hot favourite for a podium finish in the Asian Junior Championships in Chinese Taipei next month.
Rajasthan's Praveen Kumar finished second with 54.76m while another Haryana lad Nirbhay Singh settled for the bronze in 52.69m.
Punjab girl Navjeet, who had finished ninth in the Senior Asian Championships in Pune last year, improved upon her state-mate Manpreet Kaur's six year old national junior record with a throw of 15.89m which came on the very first round.
Decathlete Ankit Saini became the second athlete from Haryana to qualify for the Asian Junior Championships today as he garnered 6600 points to achieve it.
Hosts Tamil Nadu dominated the sprint relay event by winning both the gold medals that were at stake today. The junior women's team, consisting of Dhanalakshmi, Deepika, Vinodini and Archana, improved upon Karnataka's 13-year-old meet mark clocking a new time of 48.25 secs.
Kerala, with 97 points, pushed the previous day's leaders and defending champion Haryana (92) to second spot in the championship race.
