Federation Cup Senior National Athletics Championships: S Dhanalakshmi beats Dutee Chand in 100m final

Patiala: National record holder Dutee Chand was beaten to second place by S Dhanalakshmi, while Hima Das was disqualified after a false start in a much-anticipated women’s 100m sprint final in the Federation Cup Senior National Athletics Championships on Tuesday. The 22-year-old Dhanalakshmi of Tamil Nadu took the gold by clocking 11.39 seconds ahead of Dutee (11.58) of Odisha to become the fastest woman of the championships on the second day of competitions at the NIS Campus. Another Tamil Nadu runner Archana Suseendran was third in 11.76. This was after Hima, who was running in the shorter sprint races of 100m and 200m instead of her per event 400m, was disqualified after a false start. The much-anticipated final did not live up to the expectations as Hima was shown the red card, while Dutee and Dhanalakshmi did not come anywhere near the Olympic qualification mark of 11.15 seconds. Dhanalakshmi had qualified for the finals as the fastest runner with a time of 11.38 in the preliminary round on Monday and she did not make any improvement in her timing on Tuesday. The same was in case of Dutee, who had run 11.51 on Monday. Gurindervir Singh of Punjab won the men’s 100m final in 10.32 seconds, while Elakkiyadasan Kannada of Tamil Nadu (10.43) and Maharashtra’s Satish Krishnakumar (10.56) were second and third respectively. National record holder Amiya Kumar Mallick of Odisha finished seventh with a time of 10.75. Gurindervir had clocked a personal best 10.30 seconds in the semi-finals on Monday in the third fastest time by an Indian sprinter. The Olympics qualification time in men’s 100m is 10.05 seconds. Veteran MR Poovamma, representing Karnataka, took the gold in women’s 400m, winning the final race in 53.57 seconds. Tamil Nadu’s Subha Venkatesan (54.48) and Kiran Pahal of Haryana took the silver and bronze respectively.