Tamil Nadu’s Baranica Elangovan improved her own pole vault national record by clearing 4.23m on the second day of the inaugural Indian Indoor Open combined event and pole vault competition at the Kalinga Stadium Indoor Athletics Center in Bhubaneswar on Sunday.Elangovan set the previous national mark of 4.22m in March this year during the first national indoor athletics meet at the same venue. On Sunday, after two unsuccessful attempts, she improved the record by 0.01m. She later attempted 4.30m but failed to clear the bar in all three attempts and admitted she was exhausted by then.Both Elangovan and her coach Milber Russell expressed satisfaction with the performance after the event, especially as they did not expect such a result.“I didn’t prepare with any set expectations. I simply focused on improving my technique and accepted any performance. As long as it was based on sticking to my basics, I was happy with it,” said Elangovan, who has cleared 4.10m three times this year at the Asian Games.Russell is now looking forward to the upcoming Federation Cup in Ranchi. “She has already broken the qualifying mark, so now we are focusing on the nationals and making small technical changes. This was clearly shown today with a good jump, so we are happy and confident going into the Asian Games,” he said.Apart from Asiad, Russell is also eyeing the international pole vault competition in Busan, where he has been selected to compete in Elangovan. However, she does not want to push her to chase the Commonwealth Games qualifying mark of 4.45m. “We don’t push too hard because the pole vault is a very tough event and too much pressure can lead to serious injuries,” the coach added.Madhya Pradesh’s Nitika Akare and Kerala’s Blessy Kunjumon finished second and third, both clearing 3.90m.In other events, NCOE Trivandrum’s Thowfeeq N won the men’s heptathlon gold with 5,350 points, while Tamil Nadu’s Kirthik Vasan S claimed the U20 men’s heptathlon title. Odisha’s Purnima Hembram led the women’s pentathlon with 3835 points while Uttarakhand’s Jaskiran Kaur won the U-20 pentathlon gold with 3272 points. NR in the mixed relay 4×100 m: While none of the Indian relay teams impressed on the second day of the World Athletics Relays in Gaborone, Botswana, the 4x100m medley relay broke the national record with a time of 41.35s.The quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS in Saturday’s Round One race dropped the baton in Sunday’s Round II to finish an unblemished sixth.However, they missed out on qualifying for the 2027 World Cup in Beijing, with only the top two teams securing a direct berth.It was disappointing for both the men’s and women’s 4x100m teams, who dropped the baton in their respective races. The women’s team finished last with a time of 53.90s, the men’s team was disqualified for passing the baton outside the takeover zone.Meanwhile, the men’s 4x400m team did not finish after Amoj Jacob, running the second leg, suffered a cramp. The mixed 4×400 m relay finished last, with a time of 3:19.40 s.
