Ace Indian athlete Anju Bobby George warmed up for the Commonwealth Games by winning the long jump gold medal at the 12th Federation Cup Athletics Championship in New Delhi on Friday.
The world number four won with a leap of 6.47m, which she recorded in her final jump.
Anisha K Vijayan of Central Reserve Police Force won silver with an attempt of 6.01m while Kerala's P K Priya was third after jumping a distance of 5.92m.
But Anju was not best pleased with her outing at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
"I did not find my rhythm for most of the competition. Only in the last two jumps did I feel I was running in well," the long jumper, who won the bronze medal at the last Commonwealth Games in Manchester, said.
She started with a jump of 6.31m and improved marginally to leap 6.32, 6.33 and 6.36m in her next three attempts.
After managing only 6.29m in her penultimate effort, she recorded 6.47m in her last leap.
Her husband and coach Robert Bobby George said they had aimed to register around 6.70m here to get a psychological boost ahead of the Melbourne event.
"The best jump recorded by any Commonwealth athlete this year is 6.67m, so if she had managed more than that, she would have been in a better frame of mind going into the Commonwealth Games," he said.
Anju will participate at the World Indoor Athletics Championship in Moscow (March 10-12) before going to Melbourne.
The other highlight on the last day of the championship was a meet record set by Benedict Starli of Tamil Nadu in men's high jump. The 22-year-old bettered the previous mark of 2.11m set by Juby Thomas in 1999 by 2cm.
Kerala's Roshan K R was second with a clearance of 2.10m while Rajasthan's Om Veer Singh was third with a best attempt of 2.05m.
Bhupender Singh won the men's 400m clocking 46.14 seconds ahead of S Srinivas (46.85) and P Shankar (46.92).
But the event was marred by Athens Olympic semifinalist K M Binu's limping off the track in the final with a hamstring injury.
This now puts his participation in the Commonwealth Games in serious doubt.
Armyman Anil Kumar P emerged the fastest man of the meet when he won the 100m in 10.44 seconds though he could not get near his own national record of 10.30 secs recorded last year.
Deepthi Jose of Kerala handed Poonam Tomar her first domestic loss in three years in the women's 100m. The Keralite just about managed to pip the Delhiite by 0.01 seconds by winning in 11.91 secs.
Susmita Singha Roy clinched the heptathlon gold when she amassed 5,872 points to pip her Bengal teammate Soma Biswas by a mere 15 points.
The result was a reversal of the Asian Athletics Championship at Incheon, South Korea, last September when Soma led Susmita in an Indian 1-2. Olympian J J Shobha was third with 5,720 points.
