Mallala Anusha clinches gold despite mess up by officials

Bhubaneswar: Two costly mistakes by technical officials almost spoiled Mallala Anusha’s party but she took the lead after her fifth-round effort was measured again and then almost snatched the 18-year-old meet record with a big leap on her final attempt of 13.53m that won her the women’s triple jump gold on the opening day of the 27th National Federation Senior Athletics Competition here on Sunday.The 22-year-old was trailing in second place behind Kerala’s seasoned campaigner Sheena NV who had overtaken Anusha (13.28, 2nd attempt) with an effort of 13.32 on her second attempt. Anusha thought and the spectators were certain that she had a big leap with her fourth jump but the official put the marker at the wrong pace that saw the distance coming down to 13.29m. The official repeated the mistake on her fifth attempt and it was declared at 13.11m before the judge intervened.Following Anusha’s protest, the judge intervened and on further inspection, the first mark was found to be wrong. When the distance was measured again from the new mark, it went up to 13.35m. Anusha found her personal best with her final leap but it was just four centimeters short of the meet record set by Anisha K Vijayan in New Delhi in 2006. Kerala’s Gayathry Sivakumar took bronze with an effort of 13.08m.DNF for Vithya ramrajThe women’s 400m hurdles final was highly anticipated with Tamil Nadu’s R Vithya Ramraj, who threatened PT Usha’s record last season, in action. But the Tamil Nadu girl who started from lane 8 pulled just 10m into the race. “I didn’t properly hear the sound of the gun which was very low. Even Vithya had the same complaint,” a finalist, who didn’t want to be identified, told TOI. With Vithya out early Punjab’s Veerpal Kaur took the gold with a modest effort of 59.43 seconds. Kerala’s Salini V and Punjab’s Ramandeep Kaur who finished second and third respectively failed to dip under the minute mark.Other results: Men: 400m: 1. Santosh Kumar T (TN, 50.04s), 2. Nikhil Bhardwaj (Pun, 50.92); 3. Dhaval Mahesh Utekar (Guj, 51.13); Pole vault: 1. Dev Kumar Meena (MP, 5.10m); 2. Shekhar Kumar Pandey (UP, 4.90); 3. Hariharan R (TN, 4). Women: 5000m: 1. Lili Das (Ben, 16:31.05); 2. Poonam Sonune (Mah, 17:02.51); 3. Kiran (Har, 17:06.64); Javelin throw: 1. Rashmi K (AP, 54.75m); 2. Karishma S Sanil (Kar, 49.91); 3. Rupinder Kaur Sohal (Pun, 47.66).
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