Day 2 of the 21st Federation Cup brought with it the promise of some more riveting action.
For the local athletes faithful who had turned up in numbers at Patiala's Netadi Subhash
National Institute of Sports, there was lots of track and field excitement to look forward
to again.
With some of India's brightest stars aiming to seal their spots in the Asian Athletics
Championships, it was time to strike while the iron, much like the weather, was blazing
hot.
The man often touted as India's fastest was made to sweat in the men's 200m final.
In the end though, Odisha's Amir Kumar Malik emerged triumphant.
With his place in the Asian Athletics Championships within sniffing distance, he was the winner
here, but just by the proverbial nose.
This is how things stood at the end of that contest.
Sanjit representing Haryana and Vamsi Praveen wearing Andhra Pradesh's colours did their
best to stay proud coming in 2nd and 3rd respectively.
The women's 200m finals was a treat for the gods.
The much hyped face-off between the two Odisha delegates Shrabeni Nanda and Dutty Chand went
neck and neck till the end and were eventually separated by just 0.03 seconds.
History repeated itself as Nanda won again in this competition.
Our prize was the much-co-weighted Asian Athletics Championship birth.
So heartbreak once again for Dutty.
She was left gutted, having competed in this category for a while now without much joy.
But she will return to action on day 4, to compete in 100m category.
Karnataka's Jyoti HM came in one place behind her in 3rd, tripping the clock at 24.37 seconds.
In the men's javelin throw, all eyes were on India's brightest young athlete and a star
for the future, Haryana's Neeraj Chopra.
And he did not disappoint the folks in the galleries, setting a new meet record of 85.63
meters.
Adding to the joy of the crowd, meanwhile was the performance of the Vinder Singh Khan
who threw it 83.82 meters from the line.
Getting within touching distance of Chopra was in itself a big achievement for the Vinder,
even as the gold medalist looked to set his sights higher.
So this is how things stood overall in that discipline.
In many ways it was the blue ribbon event of the evening and it saw Abhishek Singh and
other Uttar Pradesh representatives performing quite well too.
Staying with the field action, local lads Tajinder Pal Singh and Jasdeep Singh Dhillon
made it a Punjab 1-2 in the short put event.
Tajinder was understandably elated after achieving his primary objective which was to qualify
for the Asian Athletics Championship.
A case of so near yet so far there for Jasdeep and Om Prakash Singh Karhana who failed to
qualify for the big ticket event, but they will take a lot of heart from their performance
here, which should teach them a lot about competing at the highest level.
So that was that as far as all the mesmerizing ground to action was concerned.
Records were broken, drama was witnessed and there were plenty of tears all around.
Some of joy, but most of disappointment.
It has been an unbelievably fascinating competition so far and here is hoping this happy trend
to continue as we look forward to round 3 with baited breath now.
