V S Surekha of Indian Railways established a new mark in the women's pole vault, bettering her own record with a leap of 3.55 metres, on the third and final day of the Standard Chartered Open National athletics championship in Mumbai on Sunday.
Another Indian Railways athlete Sahana Kumari equaled the national mark with a fine jump of 1.81 metres to win the women's high jump gold and also helped her team win the overall championship with 338 points.
In the pole vault, Surekha improved upon her own mark of 3.51 metres, set at the last Nationals at Bangalore, to win the gold, while her teammate Shail Tiwari, with a jump of 3.30 metres, finished second. Delhi's Deepa Choudhary and Railways' Tapsi Nandi, who both cleared three metres, settle for the third spot.
Sahana Kumari equalled the eight-year-old meet record, set at Kolkata in 1998, and the national record, set at Chennai in July this year, by Bobby Aloysius. Mumbai's Sarita Patil (1.74)
and Railways' Tessymol Joseph (1.68) won the silver and bronze respectively.
The Services' relay team, comprising Satvir Singh, K T Tony, A G Ajesh and Sarish Paul, won the 4x400 metres gold with a timing of 3:13.97 seconds and were also declared the men's team champions (150 points).
Indian Railways, who clocked 3:17.04 minutes, and Delhi (3:17.89 minutes) had to be content with second and third places respectively.
The women's team championship went to the Indian Railways, who aggregated with 224 points.
