Inter-State Athletics C'ships: Animesh Kujur breaks 200m meet record

Indian star sprinter Animesh Kujur continued to impress and clinched the national 200m title with a new meet record time at the 64th Inter-State Athletics Championships 2025 in Chennai on Saturday.

Clocking a time of 20.63s, Animesh broke his own meet record time and earned 1223 ranking points for the Tokyo World Championships, which will push him to the top 40 of Road to Tokyo Rankings.

With the 48 available spots, this result will almost confirm his qualification for the debut World Championships, marking him as the first-ever Indian male sprinter to run at the global event.

Triple Gold for Dhanalakshmi

Dhanalakshmi, who is making her return to the competitive circuit after a three-year doping ban, had a remarkable outing at the home Championships, winning three gold medals for Tamil Nadu.

She clinched a gold medal in women's 200m, clocking a solid 20.53s — third best Indian time of 2025 — and completed a sprint treble by also winning gold in the 100m and 4x100m relay events.

In the women's javelin throw event, evergreen Annu Rani had another wonderful outing to win the National title with a throw of 61.05m ahead of the youngster Deepika, who made the U20 National record with a 57.19m throw.

Annu showcased her class, having three 60m+ throws and almost confirmed her qualification for the World Championships via the ranking quota.

Late Entry to Road to Tokyo Rankings

Some big results of the day came in women's 800m and men's high jump respectively, where Pooja and Sarvesh Kushare pushed themselves into the available spots of the Road to Tokyo Rankings.

Pooja clocked 2:02.27 to earn 1222 ranking points, boosting her average to 1998, surpassing the previous cutoff of 1997 points for the 56 available spots.

Meanwhile, with a jump of 2.24m, Sarvesh also won identical points (1222) to boost his average to 1172, surpassing the previous cut-off of 1664 points for the available 36 spots.