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High jumper Thomas steals show in Fed Cup Athletics

April 22, 2012 22:35 IST

Kerala's Jithin Thomas stole the limelight with a personal best effort of 2.20m en route to his gold medal in the men's high jump on the second day of the Federation Cup Senior National Athletics Championships in Patiala on Sunday.

Thomas, however, missed the meet mark of 2.21m held by national record holder Harishankar Roy of Jharkhand who finished second with 2.05m, along with B Chethan of Karnataka and Jagdeep Singh of ONGC.

With Asian champion Mayookha Johny currently undergoing training in Germany, her Kerala state-mate M A Prajusha was an easy victor in the women's long jump with a modest 6.13m leap.

Prajusha, the silver medallist in Commonwealth Games at Delhi two years ago, registered her best of the day on her second jump and had another 6.03m in third round but fouled four of her jumps, including the opening one.

Quarter-miler M R Poovamma of ONGC delivered her best time in the women's 400m (53.70s) to win gold. However, it was well below the Olympic 'B' standard of 52.30s.

As expected, the men's 400m race was easily won by P P Kunhu Mohammed. His winning time of 46.67s was slightly slower than his India Grand Prix winning effort (46.58s) here 10 days ago.

Haryana's Vijay Kumar clinched the gold in the 10-event decathlon with a noteworthy 7152 points.

At the end of day two, ONGC is leading the medals tally with three gold, three silver and a bronze medal.

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