Kerala emerges as winner of 61st National School Athletics championship

The National School Athletics championship began on January 29 and concluded yesterday, i.e on February 2. Kerala emerged as the overall winner for the 19th consecutive time. The national School Athletics championship was held at Olympian Rahman Stadium in Kozhikode, Kerala.

According to newspaper reports, Kerala, the host of the championship got 306 points winning 39 gold, 29 silver and 17 bronze medals. On the other hand, Tamil Nadu stood at second position with 116 points winning 11 gold, 8 silver and 13 bronze medals. Maharashtra with 101 points obt

ained the third position. The venue of this event of Athletics is at the Olympian Abdurrahman Stadium in Medical College Ground at Kozhikode, Kerala.The School Games Federation of India hosted the 61st National Schools Athletics Championship 2016 (SGFI 2015-16) at Kozhikode (Calicut). As many as 3,000 athletes representing 36 teams are took part in the five-day meet.

Ten of the Kerala athletes won meet records. Kerala could not overcome their 46 gold record score in 2009 this year as well. State Education Minister P K Abdu Rubb presented the prize at the concluding session. Kerala's Anumol Thampi won the Junior Girls section 3000m with a record breaking effort of 9:47.19 seco, eclipsing the meet mark of 10:00.03s by Ritu Dinakar of Uttar Pradesh in 2008 in Kolkata.

In the Junior Boys 3000m, P N Ajith (Ker) claimed the first spot finishing the race in 8:46.54s and Karthik Kumar (UP) came second with 8:47.69s. Vidya Bharathi's Shyam finished third with 8:49.37s.