Warangal: On the second day of the 60th National Open Athletics Championships in Hanamkonda on Thursday, Punjab’s Harmilan Kaur Bains stole the show from the sprinters by smashing Sunita Rani’s long-standing national record in the 1500 meters.
The 23-year-old start-to-finish specialist sped home in 4:05.39 to break Sunita Rani’s Asian Games record of 4:06.03 established in Busan in 2002 where her mother Madhuri Singh took the 800m silver. OP Jais’a’s meet record of 4:11.83 set in Delhi in 2006 was also shattered by her.
KM Chanda of Delhi’s kept a close eye on Harmilan until the Punjab runner sprinted away at the finish line to win by a large margin.
Since January 2020, Kaur has gone undefeated in eight national-level races, improving from 4:14.68 at the Khelo India University Games in Bhubaneshwar last year to 4:08.70 and 4:08.27 at the Federation Cup (March 16) and Indian Grand Prix 4 (June 21) in Patiala, respectively. She finished with a national mark on Thursday, according to a statement from the Athletics Federation of India (AFI).
A huge effort was required to put a handful of good sprint events in the shade. By winning the 100m dash, Naresh Kumar (Andhra Pradesh) and Tarandeep Kaur (Delhi) were named the fastest male and female athletes of the competition.
Naresh Kumar’s winning time of 10.30 seconds was the second-fastest by an Indian in the 100m this year, trailing only Gurindervir Singh’s 10.27 seconds in Patiala on June 26. It also elevated the 23-year-old from Guntur to the top five quickest sprinters in Indian history. It inevitably awarded him the meet record, beating Anil Kumar’s time of 10.37 seconds from 2001.
