Anil Kumar claims sprint double

Punjab emerged overall champions in the 41st Inter-State athletics championships, which concluded in Lucknow on Friday.

Aggregating 138 points overall, they also clinched the men's team title, tallying 81 points.

West Bengal won the women's championship, with 76 points.

Gurpreet Singh, who broke the 37-year-old national record of G S Randhawa, set at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, in 110 metres hurdles on the opening day, was declared the best male athlete.

Saraswati Dey of West Bengal won the corresponding title for women.

Kerala's Anil Kumar completed a grand sprint double, winning the men's 200 metres in 21.24 seconds, ahead of Karnataka's K Joshya, who was second in 21.73 seconds.

On Thursday, Anil had won the men's 100 metres.

The women's 200 metres was won by Kavita Pandya, who clocked 24.05 seconds. Mukta Shaha of West Bengal was second in 24.45 seconds.

Kerala, as expected, won the men's 4x400m relay with a timing of 3 minutes and 14 seconds. Andhra Pradesh were second in 3 minutes and 16 seconds.

However, the Kerala women's team was shunted to second place in the 4x400 metres relay by Tamil Nadu, who clocked 3 minutes and 43 seconds. Kerala timed 3 minutes, 43.08 seconds.

Two new marks were posted on the concluding day of the meet. Punjab's Karanjit Kaur cleared 3.17 metres to win the women's pole vault. In the process, she bettered her own national record of 3.10 metres, set at the last edition of the nationals in Calcutta.

The other record was set in the men's hammer throw, by Pramod Kumar Tewari of Uttar Pradesh, who threw to a distance of 68.98 metres. The earlier meet record was 67.41 metres.

Jasmine Kaur of Punjab bagged the gold in the women's 20 km walk, completing the distance in 1 hour, 52 minutes and four seconds. The silver went to Rajdeep Kaur, also of Punjab, with a timing of 2.02:27 seconds.

Manipur's N Gojan Singh finished first in the men's 10,000 metres, clocking 31 minutes and 19 seconds while Maharashtra's Jagannath Lakadik was second in 31 minutes and 28 seconds.

C Latha of Tamil Nadu clinched gold in women's 800 metres, clocking 2 minutes 5 seconds, while the silver was bagged by Harjeet Kaur of Punjab with a time of 2 minutes and 6 secs.

Harshini of Karnataka cleared 1.64 metres to win the women's high jump event while Maharashtra's Saritha Patil bagged the silver, clearing 1.63 metres.

Day 1 report: Gurpreet breaks long-standing mark
Day 2 report: Anil Kumar, Saraswati Dey fastest