Indian Grand Prix series-2 | Sneha upsets Vithya Ramraj; double delight for Animesh

Kerala's K. Sneha sets personal best to win women's 200m race, beating R. Vithya Ramraj in Indian Grand Prix.

Kerala’s K. Sneha clocked her personal best to upset international R. Vithya Ramraj (Tamil Nadu) in the women’s 200m race in the Indian Grand Prix series-2 at the LNCPE Athletics Stadium on Saturday. 

Sneha had never run under 24s, and her best effort till this race was 24.01s.

The Kerala girl, who had won the 400m bronze medal in the Federation Cup recently, didn’t have a good start but pulled herself in front at about the 150 metre mark and motored past Vithya to clock 23. 59s. Vithya came second in 23.72s while Angel Silviam was third (23.87s).

Vithya didn’t have any trouble winning her favoured 400m hurdles as she strode effortlessly to clinch gold in 57.45s. The women’s 100m hurdles witnessed a close race in which Tamil Nadu’s Nithya Ramraj pipped Odisha’s Pragyan Prasanti to gold, though both clocked identical 13.27s. 

Animesh Kujur (Odisha) completed a double by winning the men’s 100m and 200m races effortlessly. Animesh was hardly challenged in both races. 

Rajesh Ramesh made a triumphant return from injury and showed no signs of rustiness as he blitzed the field to win the men’s 400m race (45.77s).

After missing nearly a year due to injury, Ramesh dazzled in his comeback race, hitting the front after the first curve and widening the lead with confident strides to finish well ahead of Jay Kumar and Rince Joseph.