Federation Cup: Rohit wins gold with 83.40m in javelin, Manu finishes second

Rohit Yadav sizzled with a personal best of 83.40m to win an exciting men's javelin competition on the final day of the Senior Federation Cup Athletics Championships in Ranchi on Thursday. DP Manu finished second with a throw of 82.95m.

Rohit showed great form as five of his throws went past 80m. He started with a big heave of 83.10m at the Birsa Munda Stadium and followed it up with a remarkably consistent series -- 83.10m, 83.40m, 83.01m, 79.19m, 80.00m, 81.46m. Rohit bettered his previous personal best of 82.54m.

Manu from Karnataka did well to chase him but his second attempt of 82.95 remained his best on the day. Bronze medallist Sachin Yadav also achieved a personal best of 80.27m. All three breached the qualifying mark for the Asian Championships (78.23m) set by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI). In fact, eight of their throws went beyond the 80m mark. The national record of 89.94m and the meet record of 87.80m both stand in the name of Tokyo Olympics gold medallist Neeraj Chopra.

While Chopra is busy breaking new ground at the world level, javelin throwers in India have stepped up in a big way in domestic competitions. Rohit and Manu have been engaged in an intense rivalry in domestic meets and pushing each other towards impressive performances. Both competed at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham last year.

Last month, Manu won the Indian Grand Prix in Bengaluru hurling the javelin to 84.33m and Rohit came second (81.81m). Manu has a personal best of 84.35m at the Inter-State meet last year.

In other results on the final day of the Federation Cup, Commonwealth Games silver medallist Abdulla Abobacker won in the triple jump with a leap of 16.76m while U Karthik finished second (16.44m).

Jyothi Yarraji won the women's 200m race clocking 23.42s and qualified for the Asian Championships. Archana Suseendran was second (23.61s) and Himani Chandel third (24.23s). Yarraji has broken the meet record in 100m hurdles on Wednesday with a timing of 12.89s.

In the women's long jump, Ancy Sojan of Kerala jumped 6.56m for the gold.. G Karthika of Andhra Pradesh (6.31m) took silver and Nayana James bronze (6.30m). In 400m hurdles Yashas P of Karnataka topped with a personal best timing of 49.40s while T Santosh won silver (49.51s).

Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.