Top athletes shocked at inter-state championship

Asian Games gold medallist Joseph Abraham and top woman long distance runner Preeja Sreedharan suffered shock upsets and had to settle for a silver and bronze respectively on the penultimate day of National Senior Inter-State Athletics Championships here today.

Asian Games gold medallist Joseph Abraham and top woman long distance runner Preeja Sreedharan suffered shock upsets and had to settle for a silver and bronze respectively on the penultimate day of National Senior Inter-State Athletics Championships here today.

HT Image

Abraham, representing Kerala, clocked a modest 51.41secs in men's 400m hurdles and was beaten to second place by Punjab's Satinder Singh (51.13secs). Abraham made a late surge but could not overtake Satinder.

Another Kerala athlete Avin Thomas collected the bronze in 51.89secs.

In women's 5,000m, Kavita Raut of Maharashtra got revenge in a way over Kerala's Preeja by winning the race in 17:00.89. Surya Loganathan of Tamil Nadu bagged the silver in 17:01.00 while Preeja took the bronze in 17:01.22.

Surya did the front running while Preeja and Kavita followed her till the last lap. The TN girl showed tremendous fighting spirit and gave a trying moment to the country's top two long distance queens.