Jyothika and Sherin hog the limelight in National under-23 athletics championship

Shashikanth and Taranjeet emerge as fastest athletes

The search is on for young quartermilers to strengthen the Indian women’s relay team for next year’s Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and Worlds. And Dandi Jyothika Sri, who had run the quartermile and mixed relay at the 2017 under-18 Worlds, produced an impressive 53.05s for the 400m gold in the first National under-23 athletics championships at the Nehru Stadium in New Delhi on Tuesday.

Her time is the second fastest by an Indian this year, behind Priya H. Mohan’s 52.77s which came at the recent under-20 Worlds.

Jyothika’s run was a dominating one and the 21-year-old from Andhra Pradesh finished more than 1.5s ahead of Jharkhand’s Florence Barla. She entered this year with a personal best of 54.70s and clocked 55.98s (inter-State) and 54.83 (National Open) in her last two competitions.