Moniruzzaman breaks 27-year-old record

Mohammad Moniruzzaman of Bangladesh Navy set a new national record in men's javelin throw, wiping out a 27-year-old record, during the second day of the NRB Commercial Bank 41st National Athletics Championships at the Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday.

Moniruzzaman cleared a distance of 64.04 metres, eclipsing the previous record of 63.74 metres set by Mohammed Rasheduzzaman of Chittagong in 1990.

Nazmul Hossain of Bangladesh Army grabbed the silver medal by clearing a height of 60.14 metres while Abdul Alim of Bangladesh Navy won the bronze at 59.87 metres. It was the only record of a day when veteran hurdler Sumita Rani continued her dominance by picking up the women's 100m hurdles title.

The 26-year-old representing Bangladesh Jail team clocked 15.00 seconds to win the title that she made her own a long time ago, beating the challenge from Mukta Khatun (15.40 sec) and Smriti Khatun (16.60 sec), both of whom are from Bangladesh Army.

The two-time South Asian Games silver medallist didn't participate in the national championships last year due to injury but did win gold in the summer meet last year. This was her 18th title, national and summer meet combined, in her pet event of 100m hurdles, she claimed. “This is my 18th gold medal, the first of which I won in 2003. I've missed a few in between due to various reasons, but I'm still confident in my ability,” Sumita told reporters after her victory.

While Sumita faced little challenge before reclaiming the gold, her timing yesterday was far off the mark (13.99 sec) she had set seven years ago in the Dhaka SA Games on way to winning a silver medal. She blames this poor timing on the lack of training facilities available for the team. “We don't have a ground of our own at Bangladesh Jail. And we couldn't train at BKSP as there was some construction work going on. We trained at a single small lane in Kashipur. Sometimes we trained at the Bangabandhu National Stadium coming from Gazipur. So the training wasn't ideal.”

Meanwhile, Sajib Hossain of Navy reclaimed his title in men's high jump after a neck-and-neck battle with teammate Mahfuzur Rahman. Sajib cleared two metres without any fault attempts while Mahfuzur, who won gold in the last national meet, also cleared the same height, but was adjudged second due to his failure in four attempts.

Bangladesh Army bagged the gold medal in men's 4X100m relay while Bangladesh Navy won the women's 4X100m relay title.

At the end of the second day, Army led the medals table with 10 gold, 15 silver and five bronze, followed by Navy with 10 gold, five silver and seven bronze medals.