Deepak Mahajan
Javelin thrower Annu Rani smashed her own national record and in the process she became the first Indian woman to cross the 60m mark on the third and penultimate day of the 56thOpen National Athletics Championships on Thursday.
Annu, who won a bronze in the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, threw the javelin to a distance of 60.01m to erase her own earlier national mark of 59.87m which she made in July during the National Inter-State Championships in Hyderabad.
24-year-old Annu was representing Railways. Today’s effort was her fourth national record in two years.
K Rashmi won the bronze with 51.56m while Poonam Rani of ONGC bagged silver with 56.73m. All the top three finishers in men’s jump cleared 2.20m for the first time in Indian athletics history. Tejaswin Shankar from Delhi won Gold with an effort of 2.2m while Chetan of Services and Sreenith Mohan of Kerala bagged the silver and bronze respectively.
Commonwealth Youth Games champion Tejaswin added 5cms to meet mark of 2.2m held by Jitin Thomas since 2012. 17-year-old Tejaswin, who won a silver in the South Asian Games in Guwahati this year, surprised many of his senior opponents. He posted a world  leading mark in the event Under-18 category to win the Gold.
The Don’t Give Up World Team  feels proud of such achievement and hopes many other aspirants come forward and participate for India’s victory.
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