India finished on top of the table with 52 medals at the second South Asian Junior Athletics Championships though they shared the honours on the second and concluding day with Sri Lanka on Tuesday.

The hosts secured 20 gold, an equal number of silver, a dozen bronze medals. The Indians got more medals but one gold lesser than the inaugural edition held at Colombo in 2007.

Sri Lanka, who shared with India the 16 gold on offer today, improved their previous performance by winning 10 gold, 10 silver and 14 bronze medals (total 34) to finish second. Bangladesh were third with three bronze while Pakistan were fourth with a lone bronze medal.

Other participating nations Afghanistan, Maldives and Nepal could not win any medal.

As expected, Indian sprinter Archana Suseentran and distance runner P U Chitra completed a double by pocketing the gold in 200m (24.32 secs) and 3000m (9:51.13) respectively.

Supun Viraj Randeniya of Sri Lanka delivered the best performance of the day while winning boys’ 110m hurdles in 13.64 secs that bettered the previous meet mark (14.62s).

There were five other meet marks on the last of day of competitions. Pazhanivel Anburaja, who showed initial hiccups in long jump, went on to win the title with a notable 7.41m leap on his fourth round.

Half-miler Jessy Joseph, a prodigy of lndian athletics legend P T Usha, clocked an impressive 2:08.38 to win gold. Meghana Shetty in 100m hurdles (14.54s) and Sachin Kumar in discus throw (54.44m) were the other Indians who bettered meet marks.

Lankan sprinter Himasha Eashan posted a meet mark in 200m as he clocked 21.44 secs.

Sri Lankan athletes made a clean sweep of medals in all the four relay races.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan capital Colombo was chosen to host the next edition of the SAF Junior Athletics Championships in 2015.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Sport / by PTI – Ranchi / November 13th, 2013