Tejas Shirse wins 110m hurdles gold but misses World Championships mark

Chennai: For the third consecutive day at the Inter-State Athletics meet, none of the athletes were able to meet the qualification mark for the World Championships. On Friday, rain played spoilsport with bursts of downpour making the conditions unfavourable. The focus on the day was on 110m hurdles national-record holder Tejas Shirse, who needed a strong performance to stand a chance to qualify for the Worlds. Maharashtra’s Tejas clocked 13.60 seconds to take gold, but the result will not help him break into the top-40 in the ‘Road to Tokyo’ standings. Had he run closer to his personal best of 13.41s, his chances of qualification would have looked better. “I cannot blame the conditions, but it is difficult to run well without competition, as has been the case for the past three to four years. I would really appreciate it if someone could give me tough competition going forward,” Tejas said. The next best to Tejas was Tamil Nadu’s R Manav (14.03s), while Muhammed Lazan (14.08s) finished third. Tejas could not compete in the recent World University Games in Germany due to an injury.Damneet misses hammer record The evening session began with men’s hammer throw and the event went on for close to five hours because of rain interruptions. Punjab’s Damneet Singh recorded 69.25m, a mark close to the national record.Upset win by triple jumper Karthik U Karthik from Kerala registered a season-best mark of 16.44m to win triple-jump gold, while his statemate Abdulla Aboobacker (16.37m) and TN’s Praveen Chithravel (16.35m) finished second and third respectively. While Praveen has already secured a berth for the World Championships by breaching the qualifying mark, Aboobacker will enter the top-30 in the ‘Road to Tokyo’ standings and is in line to claim a spot at the Worlds.