Uttarakhand’s Ankita Dhyani provided a glimpse of her immense potential as a long distance runner by breaking Sunita Rani’s National U20 record in the women’s 5000m on the opening day of the 36th National Junior Athletics Championships in Guwahati on Saturday.
Having clocked 16:37.90 to win the Federation Cup Junior U20 Athletics Championships last month, 18-year-old Ankita improved her time to 16:21.19, bettering the earlier national record of 16:21.59, set by Sunita at the Summer Universiade at the Stadio Cibali in Italy in 1997.
Earlier, Pavana Nagaraj (Karnataka) and Mohur Mukherjee (West Bengal) were locked in an intense battle at the high jump pit while Anurag Singh Kaler (Uttar Pradesh) and Nikhlesh (Haryana) challenged each other at the shot put circle to rewrite U-16 national records.
Anurag, a 11th standard student from Kafurpur in Amroha district, dominated the shot put competition by lowering the national record twice with his first two attempts over…