Federation Cup: Shot putter Inderjeet attains Rio qualification

Mangaluru, World University Games silver medallist shot putter Inderjeet Singh achieved the Olympic qualification mark with a throw of 20.65m on the second day of the 19th Federation Cup at Mangala Stadium.
Defending champion Inderjeet from Harayana was just a shade away from the national mark of 20.69m, held by Om Prakash Singh since 2012. The Olympic qualification period commenced only yesterday and is 20.50m for the men’s shot put. Punjab’s Tejinder Singh (18.08m) pushed Om Prakash (18.02m) to third spot.
Army man Devender Singh became the first athlete to create a new meet mark as he set out the spear to 79.65 metres to win the javelin throw event.
Haryana’s Neeraj Chopra (73.96m) and Delhi lad Rohit Kumar (72.72m) were the other medallists. The first two came under the qualifying grade for the Asian meet.
National record-holder Rajinder Singh (Haryana), who won the National Games gold with 82.23m, finished a disappointing fourth with a 71.67m.
Former Youth Olympic Games silver medallist Durgesh Kumar Pal clinched the gold in men’s 400m hurdles clocking a personal best 50.29 secs, thus obtaining a berth in the Wuhan-bound team for the Asian championships. His Army teammate M Ramachandran, in second place, also made it with yet another career best time of 50.35s. The bronze in this event went to Tamil Nadu youngster A Dharun in 51.14s.
Last year’s winner Jithin Paul, representing Gujarat, failed to defend his title and finished outside the podium in 51.47s. Capitalising on the absence of Ashwini Akkunji, Kerala girl Anu Raghavan took the women’s title in 400m hurdles.
Tintu Luka ran a solo race to win the women’s event. Tintu managed to clock 2:04.14 to ensure her place for the national squad but failed to materialize her ambition of making the Rio Olympics standard that stands at 2:01.00.