Top performances in athletics at National Games

Several National Records were broken at this year's event.

The track and field events were fiercely contested from September 30 to October 4 at the 36th National Games held in Gujarat. Many new athletes have emerged using the National Games as a platform in the absence of star athletes like Neeraj Chopra and Avinash Sable.

Several National Games records along with a few National Records were broken this year. In this article let us look at the top performances at the 36th National Games.

Jeswin Aldrin

The 21-year-old became the third athlete from India to qualify for the World Athletic Championships to be held in Budapest, Hungary in 2023. He achieved this feat by eclipsing the qualifying mark of 8.25m and winning the gold medal with a distance of 8.26m.

After the Federation Cup, Jeswin has not been consistent. He committed five fouls of his six attempts at the Inter States held in Chennai in June. He then had a brief stint in Europe for two months finishing first in the Golden Fly series with 8.12m. Jeswin will not take part further this season but needs to be consistent from the start of next season to compete with the world’s best.

Siva Subramanium

Siva created a new National Record beating his existing one with a jump of 5.31m. He burst into the scene while first creating an NR in 2018 with a jump of 5.30m. Along with breaking the NR he also broke the existing 35-year-old National Games Record in the process.

Siva was the only one to go past the 5m mark at the National Games with the 2nd best at 4.90m. He started his first attempt at 5.11m and was competing with himself. This season Siva took part in the first foreign meet held in Busan, South Korea finishing at 5.00. At the Inter-Services meet, he cleared the 8.21m mark. 

Jyothi Yarraji

Jyoti Yarraji won two gold medals in 100m and 100m hurdles at the National Games. She was only competing in the 100m hurdles before but now has set her eyes on the 100m sprint as well.

Earlier this year she broke her own National Record thrice with the best timing of 13.04sec in the 100m hurdles. At the National Games, she took gold in 100m hurdles at 13.76sec but the race was wind-aided (+2.5 m/s) above the permissible limit. 

She has been training in Odisha at the Reliance High-Performance centre for quite some time and has been breaking records at will.

Rosy Meena Paulraj

The pole vaulter from Tamil Nadu broke the 8-year-old National Record created by Jyothi Surekha in 2014. Rosy broke the record twice first jumping 4.16m and then going onto clear 4.20m in the next attempt.

She had gone past her compatriots Baranica Elangovan and Pavitra Vengatesan who have been giving Rosy a tough fight.

Tajinder Pal Singh Toor

Tajinder has not been in good form for the past year since he created a National Record in Patiala in 2021. Recently he skipped the World Championships due to an injury adding to the misery. 

At the National Games, he came back strong and took the top spot with a throw of 20.75m a Personal Best and Asian Leading distance for this season. He remained consistent in all his six attempts going past the 20m mark.

Tejas Shirse

The 2022 season is the 21-year-old’s first senior season after graduating from the junior setup. He took part in the 2021 World Junior Athletics Championships in Nairobi and progressed through to the semi-finals. 

At the National Games, he finished first with a timing of 13.84 sec the second best time for an Indian in the 110m hurdles. 

Sarvesh Anil Kushare

Sarvesh representing Services won the gold medal with a jump of 2.27m in the High Jump falling short of the National Record held by Tejaswin Shankar at 2.29m. He has stayed consistent throughout the 2022 season recently winning the Inter States Meet and the Inter-Services Meet.

At the Inter States, he missed the Commonwealth Games qualification mark by 2 cm finishing at 2.25m.

Ram Baboo

Ram Baboo from Uttar Pradesh finished at the top of the 35km race walk finishing in 2:36:34 mins thus creating a new National record at the National Games. In his last race at Ranchi in April 2022, he finished 2nd with the timing of 2:41:30min. The World Championships qualifying mark is set at 2:29:40 min and the

The other notable performances were from the women’s 400m hurdles where Vithya Ramraj finished first with the third best Indian time.