J J Shobha of Andhra Pradesh created a new national record in the women's heptathlon at the 10th Federation Cup Athletics Championship in Delhi to book a berth in the 2004 Athens Olympics Games squad on Wednesday.
The Andhra athlete The Andhra lass scored 6211 points to clinch the gold at the Federation Cup athletics and qualify for the Athens Olympics.
to erase the earlier record of 6186 points, set by Soma Biswas of West Bengal, in July 2000.
Shobha is the fourth Indian athlete to qualify for the quadrennial event after World championship bronze medallist Anju Bobby George, discus thrower Neelam Jaswant Singh and men's long jumper Amritpal Singh.
G G Pramila of Kerala won the silver with 5911 points while Anju Paulose bagged the bronze with an aggregate of 4927 points.
In the 100 metres hurdles for women, Soma Biswas won the gold with a timing of 13.91 seconds while K N Priya of Tamil Nadu and Amita Sethi of Orissa bagged the silver (14.35 seconds) and bronze (14.65 seconds) medals respectively.
Madhuri Gurnule of Maharashtra came out triumphant in the 5000 metres women's final. She was followed by Preeja Sridharan of Kerala and Banta Kaur of Punjab Police.
The gold medal in the men's 400 metres went to Manoj Lal (47.03 seconds) of Kerala while Satbir Singh (47.38s) of Army and P Shankar (47.64s) of ONGC bagged the silver and bronze respectively.
