National Open Athletics Championships: Railways athletes take lead on opening day

Ranchi, Sep 27 (PT) The experienced Bhairabi Roy won the women's triple jump gold as Railway Sports Control Board's athletes shone on the opening day of the 64th National Open Athletics Championships, here on Saturday.

Returning from an injury lay-off, the 30-year-old Bhairabi had a series of 12.80m, F, 12.90, 12.82, 13.10 and 12.82m with her gold-winning effort coming in the penultimate attempt.

"I'm looking forward to adding another medal at the long jump arena," Bhairabi said in post-match interaction.

RSCB earned its second gold of the opening day in the men's pole vault through M Gowtham, who won the event with a 5.10m effort.

Haryana's Seema clinched the gold in women's discus throw with a best effort of 55.26m while RSCB's Nidhi (53.71m) took home the silver.

Armyman Manikanta Hoblidhar, representing SSCB, had a smooth sailing to the medal round of the men’s 100m. He finished first in his semifinal heat with a time of 10.23 seconds, which was the fastest time of the day.

Hoblidhar also equalled the meet record of 10.23 seconds set by him in 2023 in Bengaluru.

The Maharashtra’s inter-state 100m champion Pranav Gaurav was also through to the semis with a timing of 10.39 seconds.

Services Sports Control Board's Stalin Jones took the lead in the decathlon event with 3682 points, followed closely by teammate Usaid who collected 3679 points.

The events on day-one in decathlon were 100m, long jump, shot put, high jump and 400m.

Earlier, Prince Kumar of Police Sports Control Board grabbed the first gold medal of the day by winning the men's 5,000m track race.

The women’s 5,000m gold went to Seema of Himachal Pradesh.

Results: Men's: 5,000m: Prince Kumar (All India Police) 14:06.57, Sunil Dawar (SSCB) 14:14.88, Abhishek Pal (Railways Sports) 14:19.16.

Pole vault: M Gowtham (Railway Sports) 5.10m, Rambeer (SSCB) 5.10m, Dev Kumar Meena (Madhya Pradesh) 5.10m.

Women's 5,000m: Seema (Himachal Pradesh), 16:01.27, Sanjana Singh (Haryana), 16:03.23, Kajal Kanwade (Gujarat) 16:21.88.

Discus throw: Seema (Haryana) 55.26m, Nidhi (Railway Sports) 53.71m, Sanya Yadav (Haryana) 52.05m.

Triple jump: Bhairabi Roy (Railway Sports) 13.10m, Poorva Sawant (Maharashtra) 13.05m, Nimisha Dayma (Madhya Pradesh) 12.96m. PTI APA DDV