KOLKATA:
Rajashree Prasad
continued her good show setting a meet record on way to claiming the women's U-20 200m gold on the opening day of the 69th
West Bengal State Athletics Championship
at the Sat Lake Stadium here on Thursday.
Rajashree shot into limelight winning the sprint double in the National Youth meet in Hyderabad in April 2017 and then she went on to represent the country in youth championships. She won the event last year too, but this time she improved upon her timing finishing in 24.5 seconds, thereby shattering Jalpaiguri girl Anwesha Roy Pradhan's previous meet record of 24.7s set in 2016.
Rajashree, who is representing East Bengal club in their centenary year, felt she could have done better with the timing. "I held myself back a bit due to the heavy rain," she said later.
Sumita Bhowmick of Nadia came second in 25.9s and Diptashree Roy of Jalpaiguri finished third in 26.4s.
The day's other meet record was set by Amit Singh of Burdwan DSA who won the boys U-14 600m in 1:26.4s, bettering the timing set by Uttam Rajbanshi of Dakshin Dinajpur (1:30.1s) in 2012.
The
high jump
event was won by IIT Kharagpur student Manav Singh Raghav with a leap of 1.77m. A second year mining engineering student, the Delhi boy balances his study and passion well. "I attend classes throughout the day but still practices from 6.30-8.30pm," he stated.
Anwesha Roy Pradhan lost her women's 200m crown to East Bengal's Riya Hazra who won in 24.6s. Pradhan came second in 25s.
East Bengal athletes did well on the first day claiming gold in boys U-16 200m (Arijit Rana in 23.4s) and men's 200m (Safikul Mondal in 21.8s) among other events.