Jyothi lights up Chennai meet

CHENNAI: In 2006, 400m runner Hirayun Manjuna Jyothi was eagerly waiting for her name to be included in the list of the athletes for the Commonwealth Games.
However, anger and disappointment at not being selected made her change her discipline to 100m. "I thought that I would show them what a talent they had lost in 400m," she said.
400m's loss became 100m's gain as Jyothi went on to excel in the shortest version of the sprint, winning gold in Asian All Star meet in Kerala in 2008.And on Thursday, she took another bold step beating long time rival Sharada Narain to win the women's 100m in the Inter-state National Athletics Meet.
For Jyothi, it was double the joy because she had consistently come second best to her TN rival - in Bhopal as well as the Grand Prix in Chennai. "Sharada is a very good runner and also one of my friends," she said. "So it is always a pleasure beating her on the track."
But the transition has not been easy. "In 400m we need to use the brain more. We have to think about the start and the last stretch of the race. In 100m it is just using your strength to surge ahead of others. I am still finding it difficult to finish off the 100m."
Family double for Renjith, Surekha
Kerala's Renjith Maheshwary broke the meet record to win the gold in the men's triple jump. The icing on the cake was his wife VS Surekha breaking the meet record in the women's pole vault event later. In his first attempt, Renjith set what at first seemed to be a very good leap - only to look back and see that the officials had hauled up the red flag. The crowd went silent, but went berserk when Renjith, in his second jump, set the mark of 16.73m.