Indian pole vault athletes Kuldeep Kumar and Dev Meena produced stunning showing at the Federation Cup Athletics in Ranchi on Sunday to improve the national record twice in a matter of minutes.
The 21-year old Dev logged a vault of 5.42m to go past Kuldeep’s record from last month, before Kuldeep improved on it with a 5.45m effort to reclaim the record. Meena came back to level the record with a 5.45 vault of his own.
A day earlier, Indian sprinter Gurvinder Singh scripted history on Saturday at the Federation Cup Athletics in Rachi as he recorded a 10.09s finish in the 100m event to shatter the national record and book his berth in the Commonwealth and Asian Games.
Gurvinder became the first Indian to finish below the 10.10 mark with his blistering
run in the final of the 100m event in Rachi, to reclaim the record from Animesh Kujur.
Gurvinder’s statement showing in the final comes a day after Kujur and him clocked record-scripting performances in their respective semifinal heats. Gurindervir dashed to a 10.17s finish in his semifinal heat of 100m event to break Kujur’s showing from the last year. However, Kujur reclaimed the record with a 10.15s personal best in the second heat.
The meet also serves as the CWG 2026 qualifiers and Animesh breached the qualification mark of 10.16s, but Gurindervir missed out on it by an agonising 0.01s. However, Gurvinder redeemed himself with his record-run on Saturday.
The duo, who are under the tutelage of James Hillier and also compete in the 200m event.
Following the 100m event, sprinter Vishal TK produced a blitzing run to break his own national record in the 400m events on as he became the first athlete from the nation to finish the event within 45 seconds with an effort of 44.98s in another historic result.
The duo’s showings mimic the efforts of sprinters Gurvinder Singh and Animesh Kujur, who exchanged the records a couple of times during the event in Ranchi.
