Nitin Gupta in men’s 5,000m race walk, Ranjana Yadav in women’s 5,000m race walk, Shahnavaz Khan in men’s long jump, and Mohammed Ashfaq in men’s 400m all set new U20 national records at the 2026 Junior Federation Cup in Tumkur, Karnataka on Saturday.
Gupta became the first Asian race walker to break the 19-minute barrier in U20 men’s 5,000m racewalk. He clocked 18:45.37s on his way to the gold medal, bettering his own national record of 19:24.48s set last year.
Gupta also bettered than the Asian U20 Athletics Championships qualification mark.
Yadav of Madhya Pradesh also improved the national record in the U20 women’s 5,000m race walk, clocking 23:22.12s. The previous record stood at 23:43.58s.
Meanwhile, six out of the eight finallists surpassed the Asian Junior Championships’ qualification mark in men’s 400m as Ashfaq emerged as the champion with a U20 national record of 46.05s.
Ashfaq bettered the previous record held by Olympian Amoj Jacob since 2017 at 46.26s.
Later in the day, Khan recorded a massive jump of 8.23m, improving his own meet record of 7.90m and the national junior record of 8.20m set by Murali Sreeshankar in 2018. His gold winning jump was achieved on his fourth attempt.
Elsewhere, seven out of the eight finallists in women’s 400m also bettered the Asian Junior qualification mark. Neeru Phatak clinched the gold medal with a timing of 54.31s.
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