Kochi, August 12: Young athletes from Tamil Nadu cornered glory by winning 13 gold medals and set two meet records of the four that fell on the opening day of the 21st South Zone National Athletics Championship which began here today.
The other two records went into the credit of Karnataka athletes.
Besides the gold medals, Tamil Nadu won nine silver and 12 bronze.
Hosts Kerala were in the second slot with 27 medals (9 gold, 9 silver,9 bronze) and Karnataka at third spot with 17 medals (4-7-6).
In the U-14 girls section in High Jump, Karnataka’s Srishti Sunil cleared 1.52 m erasing the existing record of 1.50 m set by Kerala’s P Merlin in 2008.
In the Under-16 girls category in Javelin throw, Karnataka’s K Rashmi took the gold with a record performance with a distance of 36.26 m. The fallen record stood in the name of Tamil Nadu’s T Manisha 35.17 mts set in 2008.
In the boys Under-16 section in Long Jump event, Tamil Nadu’s Praveen Muthukumaran set a new record with a jump of 7.01 mts erasing K J Clinton’s (ker) 6.98 Mts set in 2000.
In the Under-20 Girls section, Tamil Nadu’s L Surya erased her own record of 10 min 34.7 secs set in 2008 in the 3000 m race with a new time of 10 min 8.7 secs, while Kerala’s Neethu and Asma Beevi, who bagged silver and bronze respectively, also bettered the record.
—Agencies