Mumbai's Thingalaya equals own national record, books ticket for Asian Games

Patiala Siddhanth Thingalaya booked himself an Asian Games ticket after equaling his own national record in the mens 110m hurdles as the Federation Cup Senior National Athletics Championships concluded here today Thingalaya representing ONGC clocked 1365secs to equal his own national record which he set in Brussels in 2012 also bettering his own meet mark of 1369secsSiddhanth ThingalayaK Prem Kumar of Telangana was a distant second in 1396 while Surendhar of Tamil Nadu was third in 1424secs The Athletics Federation of India had set a qualifying standard of 1377secs for the Asian Games For Thingalaya it was an achievement of sorts to equal the national record considering the slow track on offer at the NIS here and the humid conditions It was a surprise for me I did not expect to equal my own national recordI am happy Thingalaya said later Asian Games medal prospect Arpinder Singh of ONGC won the mens triple jump easily with an effort of 1670m beating his senior colleague Renjith Maheswary 1643m in a much anticipated contest Arpinder who won a bronze in the recentlyconcluded Glasgow CWG also holds the national record of 1717m He is also the Asian leader this season The AFI qualifying standard for the event for Asian Games is 1656mIn the second top draw event of the day 2010 CWG gold medallist and national record holder from Rajasthan Krishna Poonia won the women s discus thrower with an effort 5684m while World Junior Championships bronze winner Navjeet Kaur Dhillon of ONGC was second with 5326m Poonias effort was below the 5755m qualifying mark set by the AFI and the selection committee will have to take a call on itGlasgow Commonwealth Games silver medallist Seema Punia skipped the meet N Chandrodaya Singh of Uttar Pradesh then bettered his own meet record of 6778m in men s hammer throw with an effort of 6784m Kamalpreet Singh of ONGC was second in 6678m while Neeraj Kumar of Indian Navy was third with 6671m Sushmita Singha Roy of West Bengal won the women s heptathlon event with an aggregate of 5402 points from the seven events while Swapna Barman 5400 also of West Bengal and Liksy Joseph 5351 of Madhya Pradesh were second and third respectively 14 meet records were broken in the Championships besides Thingalaya s national record equaling effort Thingalaya was adjudged the best male athlete while the honour of best woman athlete went to M R Poovamma who won the 400m raceTamil Nadu won the overall team championships with 125 points while Kerala finished second with 121 points Tamil Nadu also won the men s team championships with 82 points while Kerala bagged the women s team championships with 57 points As expected M R Poovamma of won the women s 400m race in 5242secs and earned a ticket for the Asian Games by bettering the AFI qualifying mark of 5299secsPriyanka Panwar of Uttar Pradesh was second in 5340 while Debashree Majumdar of West Bengal was third in 5379secs Mandeep Kaur who was a member of the 4x400m gold winning quartet in the 2010 Asian Games was fourth in 5397secs in her first competitive race after ending a twoyear suspension due to a dope offence last year The other member of the quartet Ashwini Akkunji whom also served a similar two year ban along with Mandeep was a poor fifth in 5419secsIt was a close finish in the men s 400m race with Kunhu Muhammad pipping favourite Rajiv Arokia to second place in a timing of 4640 secs which should put him in chance for a place in the Asian Games team AFI qualifying mark 4634 Rajiv Arokia was second in 4641 while Jibin Sebastian was third in 4728 Indian Navy won the men s 4x400m relay race in a meet record of 31144 though the timing is way below AFI standard of 30649In the morning session 2010 Asian Games gold medallist Preeja Sreedharan of Kerala won the women s 10000m race in 342794 in a mediocre show Swati Gadhave of Maharashtra was second in 362846 while Monika Athare also of Maharashtra was third in 364415 Shreedharan holds the national record of 315047 as well as the meet mark of 325658Her goldwinning performance today was also below the AFI qualifying mark of 323913 In men s 10000m race Rahul Kumar of Maharashtra bagged the gold in 300477 while Laxman of Tamil Nadu and Kheta Ram of Rajasthan were second and third in 300520 and 300898 respectively The electronic scoreboard at the finishing line created some flutter as it showed 1257secs for the winner of the women s 100m hurdles which would have put her among the top performers in the world M M Anchu of Jharkhand eventually won the women s 100m hurdles in 1380secs The electronic scoreboard showed a faulty timing for the second time when it showed 2053secs for the winner of the men s 200m race Manikananda Arumugam of Tamil Nadu won the race in 2112secs while Velayutham also of Tamil Nadu and M G Joseph of Manipur were second and third in 2183secs and 2187secs respectively The women s 200m race was won by Asha Roy of West Bengal in 2389secs onehundredth of a second better than the AFI qualifying standard of 2390secs Srabani Nanda of Odisha was second in 2402 secs while Archana was third in 2494secs