Nishchay smashes meet record with 63.69m throw; Maharana, Neeru shine in sprints

Bhubaneswar, Oct 13 (PTI) Haryana's teenage discus thrower Nishchay produced a record-breaking effort to win the boys' U-18 gold on the fourth day of the 40th National Junior Athletics Championships, here on Monday.

The 17-year-old hurled the 1.5kg disc to 63.69m, smashing the previous meet record of 60.17m set by Atul in 2022 in Guwahati.

His series read 63.56m, 63.69m, 61.22m, no mark, 62.62m and no mark.

Nishchay, who had earlier bagged the shot put gold with a best of 19.48m, thus underlined his all-round strength in the throws events.

Rajasthan's Vishal Kumar won silver with 60.90m, also bettering the old record, while Usman Ali Khan of Madhya Pradesh took bronze with 58.81m.

With the qualification standard for next year's World U20 Athletics Championships in Oregon, USA, set at 56m, Nishchay's performance has placed him among the leading contenders for national selection.

Records were also seen in the U20 200m events with home favourite Pratik Maharana clinching the men's gold in 21.24 seconds, eclipsing the previous meet record of 21.26 seconds set by Veeresh Mathur in 2023.

In the women's U20 200m, Uttar Pradesh's international sprinter Neeru Pathak clocked 24.05 seconds to better Sakshi Chavan's 2024 meet record of 24.14 seconds.

Neeru had earlier claimed the 400m gold in the same age group. PTI SSC SSC TAP