Thiruvananthapuram: Tamil Nadu’s Archana Suseendran defeated Hima Das in the 100m final and made the most of the Assam sprinter’s disqualification in the 200m to claim a double gold in the AFI Indian Grand Prix 2 here on Monday.
Archana won the 100m in 11.52 seconds, 0.22 seconds ahead of Hima, and the 200m in 23.21 seconds.
The 24-year-old Muhammed Ajmal clocked a sub-47 second time this season, improving on the 46.90 seconds that helped him to win the AFI National 400m Championships title earlier this month.
Despite winning the National Games crown in 46.29 seconds, he was only fifth best Indian in 2022 and will be looking to establish himself as the leading quarter miler in the Asian Games this year.
With a best of 19.76m, the left-handed Tajinderpal Singh Toor dominated the men’s shot put.
Each of his four valid efforts were better than the 19.17m that his Punjab team-mate Karanveer Singh managed to edge out Sahib Singh (Delhi) and claim the second place.
Toor, however, is still looking for his first 20m effort of the year.
Commonwealth Games gold medallist Eldhose Paul (Kerala) won the men’s triple jump contest with a best effort of 16.27m.
Karthik Unnikrishnan and Abdulla Aboobacker ensured a podium sweep for Kerala, with the former getting his nose ahead by a mere 3 cm. Interestingly, the Commonwealth Games silver medallist Abdulla Aboobacker cleared 15.77m in his only valid try.
Muhammed Anas Yahiya won his first national-level race since returning from the Commonwealth Games last year.
He clocked 21.54 seconds to push Maldives’ Hassan Saaid to second place. Earlier, Sanjeet Singh (Haryana) edged out Amiya Kumar Mallick (Odisha) by a hundredth of a second in the men’s 100m.
The 2018 Asian Games 1500m gold medallist Jinson Johnson returned to the track for only his second race since he finished fifth at the World Military Games in Wuhan, China, in October 2019.
Having finished third in the Federation Cup in April last year, he tasted victory clocking 3:44.52 on Monday, leaving Delhi’s Rahul and Maharashtra’s Prakash Balu Gadade behind.
The AFI Indian Grands Prix 3 and 4 will be held in Bengaluru on April 10 and 15. PTI SSC.
