Federation Cup: Santosh Kumar secures gold in men’s 400 m hurdles with personal best performance

Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], May 13 (ANI): Santosh Kumar secured the gold medal in men’s 400 m hurdles on the opening day of the National Federation Senior Athletics Competition 2024 at Bhubaneswar’s Kalinga Stadium on Sunday.

Santosh, a bronze medalist in the Asian Championships, secured the top spot in the final by clocking timings of 50.04 seconds, which also is his personal best. India’s national record in this category at this competition stands at 48.80s, set by Ayyasamy Dharun during the Federation Cup 2019 in Patiala, as per Olympics.com.

Nikhil Bhardwaj secured the silver medal with the timings of 50.92s and the bronze was bagged by Dhaval Mahesh Utekar, who clocked 51.13s.

Javelin thrower Rashmi K also achieved her personal best on the opening day of the competition, with 54.75 m in the final of the women’s javelin throw, outdoing her previous best of 53.95 m.

Rashi was the only athlete to breach the 50 m mark in the women’s javelin throw, with Karishma S Sanil bagging the silver medal with 49.91 m and Rupinder Kaur Sohal getting the bronze with a throw of 47.66m.

In the women’s 400 m hurdles, Veerpal Kaur bagged the gold medal by clocking the timings of 59.43s. With timings of 1:00.73 seconds, Salini Kris had to settle for a silver and Ramandeep Kaur achieved a bronze medal by securing timings of 1:01.29 seconds.

Earlier in the day, Dev Meena, the Asian U20 Championships bronze medallist, secured the men’s pole vault gold with the jump of 5.10 m from the bar. In the women’s triple jump, Mallala Anusha achieved her personal best jump of 13.53 m to secure the gold medal. Her previous best was 13.40m, recorded in Bengaluru last year.

Sheena NV of Kerala got the silver medal in women’s triple jump with a distance of 13.32m while Gayathry Sivakumar bagged the bronze medal after recording 13.08m.

Lili Das secured the gold medal in the women’s 5000m race with timings of after clocking 16:31.05 minutes. Poonam Dinkar ended at second position with 17:02.51 minutes while the bronze medal was won by Kiran with timings of 17:06.64 minutes.