Buzz around Kiran’s sparkling performance in junior boys’ 110m hurdles

Palakkad's K. Kiran broke the National record in the junior boys 110m hurdles, clocking 13.84s. He had previously broken the under-16 boys 80m hurdles National record in Nov. 2022. His performance today broke the five-year-old junior meet record by a huge margin and was better than the senior meet record too. Kiran could better the under-18 National record of 13.57s in a year or so.

KUNNAMKULAM: “He has broken the National record,” exclaimed an excited Haridas repeatedly on Thursday evening as soon as Palakkad’s K. Kiran finished the junior boys 110m hurdles in an impressive 13.84s at the 65th Kerala State schools athletics championships at the Government VHSS ground here.

Former international Haridas and his son Arjun coach the promising sprint hurdler at Palakkad’s Olympic Athletic Club and the senior revealed that the old record of 14.02s was in the name of Mohit and was set in 2019.

Unfortunately, the State meet’s organisers do not maintain a list of National schools records so one is not sure whether Kiran had indeed achieved the feat.

“We don’t have them so we can’t say for sure whether it is better than the national schools record,” said Jimmy Joseph, a senior technical official at the meet. But he pointed out that Kiran’s time would rank 40th in the under-18 world list this year.

However, Kiran is not new to National records. At the Guwahati Junior Nationals in November 2022, the youngster had broken the under-16 boys 80m hurdles National record clocking 10.61s (old 10.81) and if he continues his impressive run the 16-year-old could better international Maymon Paulose’s under-18 National record of 13.57s in a year or so.

Kiran’s performance today broke the five-year-old junior meet record here by a huge margin (old 14.74s) and was better than the senior (14.08s, under-19) meet record too.