Athletes live up to expectations

Kujur, Annu, Sreeshankar shine in India’s maiden WA Continental Tour event

- PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

Star sprinter Animesh Kujur, veteran javelin thrower Annu Rani and long jump ace Murali Sreeshankar lived up to expectations by winning their respective events at India's maiden World Athletics Continental Tour competition here Sunday.

The bronze level event went off smoothly but the quality of competitions did not rise to any great heights.

‘There was drama in store as far as Kujur is concerned. The 22-year-old pulled up after a few paces in his men's 100m heat race in the morning. He then came out to run his 200m heat half an hour later and qualified for the final with a time of 20.99 seconds.

In the evening, he ran 20.77 seconds in the 200m final to win the gold. Ko Seunghwan of Korea (20.95 seconds) and another Indian Ragul Kumar (21.17 seconds) were second and third respectively.

Kujur, representing Odisha, holds national records in both 100m (10.18 seconds) and 200m (20.32 seconds).