Shivpal and Dhaval pull off surprise wins

16-year-old Pooja comfortably won the women’s high jump at the National Games on Friday.
| Photo Credit: Special arrangement

Steeple-chaser Sunil Joliya set the final day’s lone record.
| Photo Credit:
Stan Rayan

Dhaval Utekar won the men’s 400m hurdles shocking National Open champion Nikhil.
| Photo Credit:
Stan Rayan

Shivpal Singh topped a star-studded field to take the men’s javelin gold.
| Photo Credit:
Stan Rayan

Javelin thrower Shivpal Singh is in a hurry to make up for lost time. After seeing his doping ban reduced from four years to one, the 2019 Asian silver medallist returned to competition early this year. And the 28-year-old struck gold for the first time this season in the 37th National Games at the Bambolim Athletics Stadium when he topped a top-class field that included Asian Games silver medallist Kishore Kumar Jena and Asian runner-up D.P. Manu.

While Jena, fifth in the world list this year and second-best Indian ever with his 87.54m which came in the recent Hangzhou Asiad, failed to cross 80m, Shivpal touched 81.17m in his fourth effort for the title. Manu took the silver with 80.48 while Jena was third (78.47m).

“I want to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics in the first meet next season just like I qualified for the Tokyo Olympics in South Africa in March 2020,” said Shivpal. “I’m only focusing on myself, how to get back to top form, not on what others are doing.”

Jena was not unhappy. “This has been a long season, so this result is okay,” he said.

Meanwhile, Gujarat’s Dhaval Utekar jolted National Open champion Nikhil Bharadwaj in the 400m hurdles for his maiden National-level title.

“I was surprised that I was all alone after about the first 100m,” said Nikhil who hopes that his performance here will take him back to the national camp and to proper training and diet.

Gujarat’s Sunil Joliya Jinabhai set the lone meet on the final day of athletics here, bettering the previous record by six seconds for a personal best time in the men’s 3000m steeplechase

Vithya Ramraj cruised to the women’s 400m hurdles gold, her second individual title at the Games here, and later helped Tamil Nadu to the 4x400m mixed relay gold.

And 16-year-old Pooja won the women’s high jump and in the process made the cut for next year’s under-20 World Championships in Peru (entry standard 1.80m).

In swimming, five of the day’s seven events produced Games records.

The results (winners):

Athletics: Men: 400m hurdles: Dhaval Utekar (Guj) 51.20m; 3000m steeplechase: Sunil Joliya Jinabhai (Guj) 8:37.15s (MR, Old: 8:43.05, Shankar Lal Swami, 2022); javelin: Shivpal Singh (Ser) 81.17m.

Women: 400m hurdles: Vithya Ramraj (TN) 56.88m; 3000m steeplechase: Preeti Lamba (Har) 10:19.78s; high jump: Pooja (Har) 1.80m.

Mixed 4x400m relay: Tamil Nadu (K. Avinash, S.K. Kaven, Sumathira, Vithya Ramraj) 3:21.26s.

Swimming: Men: 400m freestyle: Kushagra Rawat (Del) 3:55.84s (MR, Old: 3:57.16, Sajan Prakash, 2015); 50m backstroke: Srihari Nataraj (Kar) 25.77s; 200m medley: Sajan Prakash (Ker) 2:04.57s (MR, Old: 2:05.81, Sajan Prakash, 2022).

Women: 400m freestyle: Bhavya Sachdeva (Del) 4:27.93s (MR, Old: 4:32.17 Hashika Ramachandra, 2022); 50m backstroke: Ridhima V. Kumar (Kar) 30.21s; 200m medley: Manavi Varma (Kar) 2:24.21s (MR, Old: 2:25.78, Richa Mishra, 2015); Mixed 4x100m freestyle relay: Karnataka (Aneesh Gowda, Dhinidhi Desinghu, Nina Venkatesh, Srihari Nataraj) 3:38.24s (MR, Old: 3:44.62, own, 2022).