Varanasi girl Munita scripts national record in walk race
LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh’s Munita Prajapati came into her own in scripting a new national record in the under-20 women’s 10000m walk with a fine victory on the penultimate day of the 36th National Junior Athletics Championships, at the Sarusajai Stadium in Guwahati on Tuesday. The effort helped her overcome the pain of being beaten to third place a fortnight ago.
Others, who won medals for Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday, included Khyati Mathur (high jump), Ritik Chaudhary (300m), Abhishek Pal (800m), Karan Kumar (javelin), Roshani Yadav (300m), Chandrasekhar (long jump).
Munita’s time of 47 minutes 53.58 seconds earned the record from Reshma Patel who pegged the mark at 48:25.90 in winning the Federation Cup Junior U20 Athletics Championships gold in Bhopal on January 26 this year. Munita, 19, from Varanasi, won a race in which the top five finishers bettered the meet mark of 49:16.51 set by Priyanka Goswami in 2014.
The 16-year-old Reshma Patel, who competed in the under-18 category here, could only watch from the sidelines as Munita improved on record and became the first Indian under-20 woman race walker to clock a sub-48 minute time over the distance. It was clear that she took to the track today having doubled her resolve after she finished third in Bhopal.
Khyati Mathur’s show at the high jump pit also caught the eye. Having recovered from a knee injury, the Meerut girl showcased her determination with a personal best leap over the bar at 1.77m. Training in NIS Patiala over the past couple of months, she was confidence personified and added the girls’ under-18 gold to the under-16 titles that she won in 2016 (1.62m) and 2017 (1.63m).
Having surfaced in the National Inter-District Junior Athletics Meet in Visakhapatnam in 2015 where she cleared 1.44m to win the under-14 event, she kept improving. For years, her father Vishal Mathur would help her by tracking high jump videos on YouTube but with sound training now, she was able to make her mark on the national stage one more time.