GANDHINAGAR: Several new records were set at the National Games Gujarat on Monday, as the weightlifting and athletics arenas continued to produce new champions with new meet timings.
If it was Arunachal Pradesh's Sambo Lapung who became the new national record holder in the men's 96kg category, an athletics event at IIT Gandhinagar saw Services' Gulveer Singh cap off his maiden season with a record-breaking effort to win the men's 10,000m gold.
Later, in the afternoon session, Subramani Siva from Services broke the men's pole vault national record after registering a jump of 5.31m to better his own record of 5.30m set at the Inter-Services Championships in Bengaluru in 2018.
Siva also shattered the Games record of 5.10m set by Haryana's Vijaypal Singh in Trivandrum in 1987.
For Lapung, more than the gold medal, his main aim was to break Services' lifter Vikas Thakur's national record of 197kg in clean & jerk. His overall lift totalled 346kg (148kg snatch + 198kg C&J). "It feels good to win the gold here, but what's more important for me was I could breach the national record," Lapung said.
In rowing, Madhya Pradesh's Khushpreet Kaur capped off a brilliant Games outing with two gold medals - in the singles sculls and quadruple skulls with Vindhya Sankath, Poonam and Rukmini.
Ninth gold
Hrutika Shriram (Maharashtra) claimed her ninth gold medal in the National Games, her first in this edition, when she expectedly won the women's 3m Springboard Diving contest. Notching up a tally of 179. 15 points, she promptly dedicated the gold to her coach-husband and two-year-old son. Uttar Pradesh men and Telangana women became the inaugural winners of the 3x3 Basketball gold medals after scoring victories over Tamil Nadu 21-18 and Kerala 17-13 respectively in the finals in Bhavnagar.
