BENGALURU: Amit and Payal stole the limelight on the third day of the 63rd National Open Athletics Championships here at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium.
On Sunday, Haryana's Amit not only walked away with the gold medal in the 35km Race Walk, he did so in record time. The 20-year-old clocked 2:38:00 to better Ram Baboo's mark of 2:39.05, set in Bengaluru in 2022.
Amit, a silver-medallist at the 2021 U-20 World Athletics championships, was followed by SSCB's Vijay Vishwakarma (2:39:13) and Railway's Eknath Turambekar, who took the silver and bronze respectively.
In the corresponding event for women, Payal, representing Railway Sports, dominated the race and bettered her own record. The 25-year-old stopped clock at 3:02:24 to slice more than two minutes off her previous mark of 3:04.48 set at the same venue two years ago. Ramandeep Kaur (3:08.22) and Bandana Patel (3:09.31) finished second and third respectively.
Karnataka women's relay team claimed the top honours in the 4x100m event. The quartet of Sneha, Kaveri Patil, Jyothika and Daneshwari T came home in 45.21 seconds in a close finish. The Rail ways team comprising 100m winner Nithya Gandhe, Avantika Narale, Himashree Roy and G Ravikumar clocked 45.29 to end second, while Odisha B (Srabani Nanda, Sukhi Baskey, Merymukta Soreng, Binati Behera) completed the podium with a timing of 45.93.
The Railways athletes continued to be a dominant force, adding ten medals to their tally on Day 3.
