Hammer thrower Tanya betters NR but won't enter record books as meet not recognised by AFI

Mangaluru, Jan 16 (PTI) Chandigarh University's international athlete Tanya Chaudhary bettered the women's hammer throw national mark to win gold at the 85th All-India Inter-University Championships here on Friday, but her effort will not enter the record books as the meet is not recognised by the national federation.

Moreover, as admitted by the athlete herself, Tanya was not dope tested after the event. In-competition dope testing is mandatory for national record consideration by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI).

The 22-year-old Tanya's 65.60m effort went past Sarita Singh's nine-year-old national record distance of 65.25m at the Swarajya Stadium, Moodubidiri, on the concluding day of the championships.

AFI does not recognise Inter-University meets.

It was a big improvement of 1.69m for Tanya, whose earlier personal best was 63.91m achieved while winning gold at the National Inter State Senior Championships in Chennai in August last year.

She had also represented India at the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games and finished seventh.

"I expected more than that, at least 67m. This season the target is near 70m, we are preparing for that," Tanya said.

"There was no dope test today but NADA (National Anti-Doping Agency) can take my sample anywhere, any time so there is nothing like that. Anyway, since this is not a World Athletics-certified competition, it will not be considered as a national record but it's a meet record for sure," she added.

Meanwhile, 18-year-old Asian champion high jumper Pooja Singh, representing Lovely Professional University, won gold with a meet record effort of 1.85m.

With the rest of the field fading away after 1.72m, Pooja made a bold move and attempted 1.90m after bettering her own meet record with 1.85m. She failed in all her attempts at 1.90 but was not disappointed at all.

"My target this year is to clear 1.93m and break the national record (Sahana Kumari's 1.92m in 2012) and my goals are the Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and the World Juniors," said Pooja, the junior national record holder, who raised her personal best to 1.89m while winning the Asian gold in South Korea in May last year.

Madras University won the overall title while Mangalore University, virtually the Alva's Education Foundation team which hosted this five-day meet, finished runner-up. PTI PDS SSC SSC