TN girl Baranica Elangovan vaults to new heights

CHENNAI: Pole vaulter Baranica Elangovan from Tamil Nadu shattered the national record by leaping 4.22m and earned the gold medal in the inaugural National Indoor Athletics competition in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday.

The previous national record of 4.21m was held by her statemate, Rosy Meena Paulraj, which was set in 2022. Twenty-nine year-old Baranica had been chasing the national record for quite some time, and on Tuesday, she finally achieved it on her first attempt at that height. Overwhelmed with joy, she ran straight to celebrate the moment with her coach, Milber Russell, who has been guiding her for the past eight years.




Milber was ecstatic with his ward’s performance. “All those years of hard work has finally paid off and I am not able to express my feelings now. What we focused on in the pre-season was her speed on the runway and nothing else and it has helped,” Milber told TOI from Bhubaneswar.

“As a coach, I did not expect this performance, as she was using a lower-resistance pole and we had not focused on technique. After clearing 4.10m, I told her not to have any expectations at 4.22m and to attempt one jump with proper technique. It worked out well, as she cleared it on her very first attempt.

“We will be gradually introducing higher-resistance poles in future competitions so that she can jump higher. She is currently using 150 lbs poles, and only by moving up to 155 and 160 will she be able to improve further. To handle those higher-resistance poles, she needs speed, along with steady work on her technique. Baranica has shown improvement, and we now need to focus equally on speed and technique,” Milber added.

Baranica started the season by taking the top spot in the Indian Open Jumps meet in Bengaluru recently with a best attempt of 4.10m. In the process, the TN athlete breached the Asian Games qualifying mark set by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) at 4.10m.

Like several athletes, Baranica’s target is the Asian Games and if she qualifies, this will be her first appearance at the continental event. The coach is expecting her to jump at least 4.40m this season, and he feels that Baranica is on the right track.

Baranica is part of the Sports Development of Tamil Nadu MIMS scheme and trains at Reliance HPC in Odisha.

Praveen bags silver in long jump:

TN’s Praveen Chithravel, a triple jumper, secured the second spot in men’s long jump with 7.78m, while Sarun Payasingh from Odisha bagged gold at 7.80m. In the men's shot put event, Balaji (16.74m) from TN came third.