PATIALA, DEC 26 : When Pooja Varade fails to defend her title and finished third in women’s 5000m on the opening day there were speculation about her present form. However the Pune varsity distance runner re-emerged like a Phoenix and went on to take the 10000m gold on Thursday morning with a record to bout. Pooja clocked a credible 36:04.64 that shattered Calicut University’s defending champion M.D. Thara’s last year time of 36:22.35. Thara not only lost her record but also a podium finish as she could get only a fourth place for her 36:46.38 today. Harpreet Kaur (Punjabi, 36:08.37) and Rohini Raut (R.T.M. Nagpur, 36:09.22) in the next two places also bettered the previous mark. Pooja was a bronze medallist in the longer distance last year.
In yet another final of the morning, Karamjit Kaur from hosts Punjabi University returned a time of 24:54.33 to win the gold. Although it was more than a minute outside Khushbir Kaur’s meet mark, Karamjit’s feat needs to be lauded as she climbed the top spot from her eighth place position in last year. Same was the case with bronze medallist K.M. Meeshma of Calicut as she jumped five places up from her seventh in 2012.
Dharmender Kumar of Rajasthan threw the javelin to 72.63m for the gold while Emitha Baby from Mahatma Gandhi University (Kottayam) scaled 3.10m to win women’s pole vault—an event that used to be an exciting one when meet record-holder (3.60m) Khyati Vakharia and her predecessor V.S. Sureka took part earlier.
Punjabi’s Navjot Singh pulled a surprise as he pushed favourite and SAF junior champion Mohammed Salahuddin (Bharathiar) to second spot in triple jump by just 3 cm (15.40 to 15.37m).
The hosts also grabbed one more title through heptathlete Purnima Hembram, the Asian junior champion. Bharathiar University got a gold medal in decathlon as R. Suren tabulate 6057 points to win a see-saw battle from Rohtak’s Ankit Saini in just 9 points.