Madhya Pradesh’s Sunil Dawar smashed the 24-year-old U-20 men’s 5000m national record on his way to winning a gold medal in the National Junior Athletics Championships in Guwahati on Monday.
Dawar showcased his talent by clocking 14 minutes 13.95 seconds at the Sarusajai Stadium. In completing the 1500m-5000m double, he erased N Gojen Singh’s mark of 14:14.48 achieved in the World Junior Championships in Sydney in 1996.
Pushed hard by Haryana’s Puneet Yadav, Dawar asserted his presence as India’s best junior middle- and long-distance runner with an effort that not only broke Singh’s national U-20 mark but sank Rahul Kumar Pal’s meet record of 14:18.28 set in Lucknow in 2012.
It was the second 1500-5000 double that Dawar secured in the span of a fortnight after his success on home soil in the Federation Cup Junior U20 Athletics Championships in Bhopal last month.
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