KOCHI: The 28th National Federation Senior Athletic Championship kicked off in Kochi with two meet records and a handful of personal best performances. Army’s long distance runner Sawan Barwal touched the finish line in 28:57:13 seconds in men’s 10,000m, breaching the 18-year-old meet record of 28:57:90 set by Surender Singh in 2007.

“I could have done better in the race, but there was no-one to challenge me,” he said, as the runner-up Abhishek Pal of Railways finished 36s behind. Both have attained the qualifying standards for the Asian Championship to be held in Gumi, South Korea.

Drama unfolded in the 100m men’s race where Pranav Pramod of Railways clinched gold with a personal best of 10.27s while national record holder, Gurindervir Singh of Punjab, finished last with a timing of 11.21s. Manikanta Hoblidhar of Karnataka, after clocking a meet record of 10.25s in the heats, finished third with a timing of 10.35s. Animesh Kujur won silver with a timing of 10.32s. The qualifying standard for Asian Championships in men’s 100m is 10.25s. Gurindervir is the fastest man in India after smashing the national record with a timing of 10.20s in Indian GP-I in Bengaluru this year.

Telangana’s Nithya Gandhe became the fastest woman in the meet finishing 100m in 11.50 seconds.

In the women’s 10,000m final, Maharashtra’s Sanjivani Jadhav won gold with a time of 33:44:43s. Yoonus Shah of JSW won gold in men’s 1500m (3:41:93s), also attaining qualifying mark for the Asian meet. The gold and silver medalists of women’s 1500m, Lili Das of Uttarakhand and Pooja of Haryana crossed the Asian qualification time of 4:15:00s. In women’s pole vault, Pavithra Venkatesh of Tamil Nadu won gold.