Guwahati: Madhya Pradesh's Sunil Dawar broke a 24-year-old national record when he won the under-20 men's 5000m gold in 14 minutes 13.95 seconds in the National Junior Athletics Championships here on Monday. In completing the 1500m-5000m double, he erased N Gojen Singh's mark of 14:14.48 secs, achieved in the World Junior Championships in Sydney on August 23, 1996.
Pushed hard by Haryana's Puneet Yadav, Sunil Dawar asserted his presence as India's best junior middle- and long-distance runner with an effort that not only broke Gojen Singh's national under-20 mark but sank Rahul Kumar Pal's meet record of 14:18.28 secs, set in Lucknow in 2012.
It was the second 1500-5000 double that Dawar secured in a fortnight, after his success on home turf in the Federation Cup Junior under-20 Athletics Championships in Bhopal last month.
Delhi's 17-year-old Harshita Sehrawat (hammer throw) was the standout performer among girls on the third day of the five-day meet at the Sarusajai Stadium. She rewrote her own national under-18 record with a 63.33m effort. She had thrown 63.62m and 63.95m in the North Zone Junior Athletics Championships in Sangrur in September 2019, but the ratified national record stood at 61.93m she marked in winning the Asian Youth Championship silver medal in Hong Kong in March 2019.
Haryana's race walker Amit Khatri, who has erased national records, would have been credited with another one on Monday. But since he had pegged the 10000m race walk mark at 40:40.97 secs in the Federation Cup Junior Championships in Bhopal on January 27, he had to settle for the meet mark with a victory in 42 minute 15.91 seconds.
The other athletes who caught the eye were Kerala's Aparna Roy and Andhra Pradesh's Yashwant Kumar Laveti. Aparna improved upon her own meet record with a time of 13.83 seconds while Laveti won the under-20 men's 110m hurdles in 13.92 seconds to equal the national and meet records set by J Surendhar in Bengaluru in 2010.
