SR emerges champion in 73rd All India Railway Athletic meet

Bhubaneswar, Oct 8 (UNI) The Southern Railway today emerged as group champions in the 73rd All India Railway Athletic Championship that concluded here today bagging 219 points with a tally of 30 medals.

The Western Railway took the second slot grabbing 198.5 points with 9 gold, six silver and 12 bronze while the Eastern Railway came third with 105 points and capturing four gold, five silver and four bronze.

The winners pocketed 11 gold, nine silver and 10 bronze.

On last day today, two new records were created, one in the Men's Triple Jump and the other in Women's 3000 M Steeplechase. While Rajneeth M of Western Railway with a lap of 16.76 metres created a new Railway Meet Record after a gap of 36 years in Men's Triple Jump, Sudha Singh of Central Railway created a new Railway mark in 10:52:90 secs beating previous record in the Women's' 3000M Steeplechase, In Men's Triple Jump, the second and third positions went to Amarjeeth Singh of Northern Railway and Anish P Krishanan of Western Railway Similarly, in Steeplechase event second and third positions were secured by Kamlesh Bhagal of South East Central Railway and Kiran Tiwari of Western Railway respectively.

In Men's 3000M Steeplechase, top positions were secured by Arun D'souza of South Western Railway, Bhagawan Diwakar Giri of North Western Railway and Santosh D N of Central Railway.

In Men's 200 metre race, Arunjith of Southern Railway, B G Nagraj of Western Railway and P Muthu Swami of Southern Railway bagged the top three positions.

In the Women's 200 race, Geetha of South Central Railway, Nidhi of Central Railway and Ilean Samantha of South Central Railway stood in the top three positions respectively.

In the Men's 800 M run, Rajeev R of Western Railway, Sajeesh Joseph of Southern Railway and Ravinder of Central Railway secured 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions.

In the Women's 800 M race, Sushama Devi of Central Railway, Sunitha of West Central Railway and Frency Thomas of South Western Railway secured first, second and third positions respectively.

In the Men's 20KM Walk,O Sushil Kumar Singh of North Frontier Railway clinched the gold while Ashok Kumar Patel of South East Central Railway bagged the silver and Kuldeep of Western Railway the bronze.

Eastern Railway topped in the Women's 400M Relay, while Western Railway stood second and the South Western Railway was satisfied with the bronze.

On the other hand, Western Railway bagged the gold in Men's 400M Relay while the Southern Railway and South Western Railway clinched the silver and bronze respectively.

Orissa Governor Murlidhar Chandrakant Bhandare graced the occasion as Chief Guest and distributed the trophies to the outstanding sports persons and teams of Indian Railways.

East Coast Railways (ECoR) General Manager S S Khurana, Sports and Youth Services, School and Mass Education Secretary Suresh Chandra Patnaik,East Coast Railway Sports Association President D K Samantray, ECoRSA General Secretary Saroj Kant Patra spoke on the occasion.

UNI