Tintu Luka, a protege of former sprint queen P T Usha, stole the limelight by bagging gold in the women's 800 metres final in the 49th National Inter-State Athletics meet in Chennai on Thursday.
The day also saw seven men and four women athletes, including Luka, surpassing the qualifying mark of the Asian Championships in China from November 10-14.
In men's javelin throw, the top five finishers Kashinath (Karnataka; 74.71m), Om Narayan (Haryana; 73.76m), Ramandeep Singh (Punjab; 73.65m), Samarjeet (Rajasthan; 73.55m) and Amit Majumdar (Bihar; 72.14m) all crossed the qualifying mark of 70.95m.
Top four athletes in the 800m run for women -- Tintu Luka (Kerala; 2:04.10s), Sushma (Delhi; 2:04.31s), SR Bindu (Kerala; 2:05.91s) and Sinimol Paulose (Jharkhand; 2:08.51s) also booked their places for China surpassing the qualifying standard of 2:08.75 s.
Twentyfive-year-old Sinimol Paulose, silver medallist at the last Asian Championships in Jordan, was relegated to the fourth spot today by up and coming stars.
Sinimol's personal best in 800m is 2:02.06, set in 2006.
Other athletes to qualify for Asian Championships were Harminder Singh (Punjab; 1:29.44s) and Ashok Kumar Patel (Chhattisgarh; 1:32.22s), who won the gold and silver in the 20 km walk.
In men and women's 100 metre dash, Tamil Nadu's Sathya and HM Jyothi of Andhra Pradesh won gold, respectively.
