Parul of Railways, who picked gold in women’s 5000m on the first day, completed a golden double by warding off the challenge from Komal Chandrakant Jagdale of Maharashtra in the women’s 3000m steeplechase.

In the men’s 35-km race walk event, Ram Baboo of Uttar Pradesh created a new national record clocking 2 hours 46 minutes and 31 seconds.

Tamil Nadu mixed 4x400m relay quartet set a new meet record in an enthralling final which saw fancied Railways being disqualified after Kiran Pahal was caught for infringement. Kiran, running the third leg, stepped inside while jostling for space with Delhi’s Pooja.

The credit for Tamil Nadu’s victory should go to R Vithya Ramaraj’s spectacular third leg when she lifted her team from fifth place to second for P Abhimanyu to come up with a memorable anchor leg that saw him overhaul a 5m lead held by All India Police at the start of the final leg.

However, it was the good cat and mouse chase between Parul and Komal in women’s 3000m steeplechase that caught the attention of all as both ended up with personal best.

In the beginning of the seven-and-a-half round event, Komal opened up a big lead while Parul looked comfortable with second fiddle. In the home stretch, the experienced among all, Parul showed why she is the best in the long distance events with a kick that helped her surge ahead of Komal that helped the Railway runner from Meerut to clock 9 minutes 51.01 seconds, a sub-10 minute for the first time. Komal was close enough with a time of 9:51.03s for silver while Priti Lamba of Railways (10:22.45s) took bronze.

However, the timings were substandard considering the fact that the national record of 9:19.76s was set by Lalita Babar during 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

Meanwhile, Railways’ B Aishwarya claimed the women’s long jump gold with an opening jump of 6.52m that also took her to be among the top jumpers in the country.

Meanwhile, Tejas Shirse, just 19, of Maharashtra clocked 14.09seconds to win the men’s 110m hurdles gold, the fastest time this season. Tejas, a trainee at the JSW’s Inspire Institute of Sports in Bellary in Karnataka, finished creditable seventh at the Nairobi World U20 Athletics Championships held last month.

RESULTS

MEN

3000m Steeplechase: Shankar Lal Swami (Services, 8:46.05s), Md Nur Hasan (Ser, 8:50.00s), Balkishan (Ser, 8:50.45s).

110m hurdles: Tejas Ashok Shirse (Maharashtra, 14.09s), Sachin Binu (Ser, 14.22), Tarundeep Singh Bhatia (Ser, 14.22s).

High jump: Jesse Sandesh (Railways, 2.17m), Bharathi Vishwanathan (Ser2.17m), Sarvesh Anil Kushare (Ser, 2.17m).

Shot put: Karanveer Singh (Rlys, 18.46m), Devinder Singh (Pun, 18.02), Vanam Sharma (Raj, 17.96m).

35m race walk: Ram Baboo (UP, 2:46:31.00s NNR. OR: 2:49:12.00, Manish Singh Rawat, Ranchi, 2021); Sagar Satishchandra Joshi (Gujarat, 2:53:43.00), Surinder Singh (Punjab,2:54:22.00s).

WOMEN

3000m steeplechase: Parul Chaudhary (Railways , 9:51.01), Komal Chandra Jagdale (Mah, 9:51.03), Priti Lamba (Rlys, 10:22.45s).

100m hurdles: C Kanimozhi (Rlys, 13.54s), Aparna Roy (Kerala, 13.58s), K Nandhini (TN, 13.90s).

Long jump: B Aishwarya (Rlys, 6.62m), Sherin Abdul Gafoor (TN, 6.27m), Priyanka Kerketta (Rlys, 6.05m).

35km race walk: Ramandeep Kaur (Pun, 3:15.17.00), Sonal Sukhwal (Rajasthan, 3:18:35.00), Priyanka Patel (UP, 3:27:56.00s).

MIXED

4x400m Relay: Tamil Nadu (T Santhosh Kumar, I Dhivya, R Vithya Ramaraj, P Abhimanyu) 3:26.22 (New Meet Record. Old: 3:27.93, Delhi team, Ranchi, 2019); Punjab (3:27.49s), Delhi (3:28.01s).