Tamil Nadu’s Barnika Elangovan improved her own pole vault national record by clearing 4.23m on the second day of the inaugural Indian Indoor Open Combined Events and Pole Vault competition at the Kalinga Stadium Indoor Athletics Center in Bhubaneswar on Sunday.Elangwon had set the previous national mark of 4.22m during the first national indoor athletics meet at the same venue in March this year. On Sunday, after two failed attempts, he improved the record by 0.01m. She later attempted 4.30m but failed to clear the bar in all three attempts, admitting she had drifted by then.Speaking after the event, both Elingwon and his coach Milber Russell expressed satisfaction with the performance, especially as they were not expecting such a result.“I didn’t prepare with any set expectations. I just focused on improving my technique and accepted whatever performance came. As long as it came from sticking to my basics, I was happy with it,” said Elangovan, who has already cleared the 4.10m Asian Games qualification mark three times this year.Russell is now looking forward to the upcoming Federation Cup in Ranchi. “She has already crossed the qualification mark, so now we are focusing on the nationals and making small technical changes. It was evident today with a good jump, so we are happy and confident going into the Asian Games,” he said.Apart from the Asiad, Russell is also eyeing the Busan International Pole Vault Competition, where Elangwon has been selected to compete. However, they are not keen to push him to chase the Commonwealth Games qualifying mark of 4.45m. “We are not pushing too much because the pole vault is a very difficult event and too much stress can lead to serious injuries,” added the coach.Madhya Pradesh’s Nitika Akre and Kerala’s Blessy Kanjomon cleared 3.90m to finish second and third respectively.In other events, NCOE Trivandrum’s Tawfiq N won the men’s heptathlon gold with 5,350 points, while Tamil Nadu’s Karthik Vasan S took the men’s U20 heptathlon title. Odisha’s Purnima Hembram topped the women’s pentathlon with 3,835 points, while Uttarakhand’s Jaskaran Kaur won gold in the U20 pentathlon with 3,272 points. NR in 4x100m medley relay: None of the Indian relay teams impressed on day two of the World Athletics Relays in Goboron, Botswana, with the 4x100m mixed relay team breaking the national record with a time of 41.35 seconds.After dropping the baton in the Round I race on Saturday, the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kajoor and Sneha SS made amends in Round II on Sunday, finishing sixth without a mistake.However, they missed out on qualifying for the 2027 World Championships in Beijing, with only the top two teams securing outright berths.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 53.90, while the men’s team was disqualified for passing the baton outside the takeover zone.Meanwhile, the men’s 4x400m team failed to finish when Imoj Jacob, running in the second leg, collapsed in pain. The mixed 4x400m relay team also finished last with 3:19.40 seconds.
