Rising javelin thrower Sachin Yadav continued his purple patch on Wednesday, bagging the men’s javelin title at the National Games in Dehradun with a personal best performance.
Sachin broke Haryana athlete Rajendra Singh’s meet record of 82.23m with his fifth attempt of 84.39m, and that throw was also the fifth straight competition this season that the Uttar Pradesh thrower had produced an 80m-plus throw. Rohit Yadav (80.47m) of the statemate Sachin and Vikas Sharma (79.33m) of Uttarakhand finished in second and third positions, respectively.
He first broke the 80m barrier at the National Open Athletics Championships in Bengaluru, winning with 80.04m last year, and was third at the Federation Cup (80.27m), won the Indian Grand Prix 3 in Bengaluru (82.69m) before claiming the All India Police Athletics Championships with 84.21m.
However, his effort was below the World Athletics Championships automatic qualification mark of 85.50m for this year to be held in Tokyo. I wanted to hit the World Athletics automatic qualification mark and did [not]. Lily White, 15, added: “I’m nearly there so hopefully next comp I can do it.
In the Games athletics, services runner Sawan Barwal representing Himachal Pradesh and Haryana high jumper Pooja were the other two who improved the meet record.
Barwal made it a distance double, running a finely judged 5000m to take the race in 13:45.93, improving upon the National Games record of 13:50.05 set by G Lakshmanan (Services) in 2015. On the opening day of track and field competitions, Barwal claimed victory in the 10,000m.
Pooja improved upon Swapna Barman’s 2022 meet mark of 1.83m by clearing the bar at 1.84m.
In men’s 400m hurdles, Gujarat’s Ruchit Mori (50.97s timing) took the gold, while Punjab’s Hardeep (51.02s) and Maharshtra’s Rohan Kamble (51.77s) claimed silver and bronze, respectively. In women, the top position was claimed by Tamil Nadu’s Vithya Ramraj (58.11secs) while her statemate Srivardhini SK (59.86s) was second. Maharashtra’s Neha Dhabale (1:00.52) finished third.