CHENNAI, July 2: G G Prameela of Karnataka set a new national mark in heptathlon on a day when P T Usha became the lone athlete to win a golden double in the ongoing Indian Oil Servo fourth Federation Cup Athletics Championship at the Nehru Stadium here this evening.Prameela agrregated 5541 points to break the earlier record held by her state-mate B N Sumavathi (5361 points in the Bangalore inter-state meet) and booked her berth for the Asian Track and Field Meet to be held in Japan later this month.
Usha, who has already qualified for the 200 m from the Bangalore circuit meet last month, finished first in the 400 m event beating two other reputed athletes Joytirmoyee Sikdar and Rosa Kutty, who took silver and bronze respectively. Usha's timing of 52.43 secs in the one-lap race put her through to Japan in this event also.
Five meet records were also set on the penultimate day of the three-day event today by Maharashratra's Anand Menezes in 200m, Harish Kushlappa (Karnataka) in 110m hurdles, Gurudev Singh (Punjab) in 20 km walk, Arumugapillai (S.Railways) in high jump and Neelam J Singh (Punjab) in women's discus throw.
In the women's discus throw, Neelam (57.94 m), Surinderjit Kaur (54.28 m) and Swaranjit Kaur (54.28m), both from Punjab and Harjit Kaur(Pun --52.34 m) achieved required mark of 52m for the Asian Track and Field event.
The 21-year-old Prameela showed her mettle in great measure in the gruelling event. After she set an enviable lead of 373 at the half-way mark yesterday over her her nearest rival Soma Biswas of Eastern Railway, Prameela never looked back in the long jump, javlin and 800 m race today.
Biswas could better Prameela only in the javelin throw event. The strenous training undergone by Prameela in the last six months paid off as she put up her career-best performance improving by 480 points her earlier best of 5061 achieved in last December in the Open Nationals at Gandhinagar.
It was also one of the best performance in recent times by any heptathlete as her tally of 5541 was way ahead of the qualifying mark of 5395 required for the Japan meet.
In the 400 m, Usha, who added the gold in the event to her 100 m winning effort yesterday, ran a well calculated race and after lying fifth in the first 100 metres, she steadily acclerated to forge ahead from 200 metres to the finish.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.