Bharatinder Singh of Haryana smashed a national record in decathlon to grab the gold on the second day of the National Senior Inter-State Athletics Championships in Bangalore on Sunday.
Bharatinder totalled 7658 points in the 10-event discipline to eclipse the five-old year old mark of Jora Singh by 156 points at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium.
Asian Games gold medallist and 400m hurdler A C Ashwini entertained the home crowd by winning gold in 400m with an impressive effort of 52.82 secs.
Ashwini ran a brilliant race to push strong gold medal contenders Mandeep Kaur of Punjab and Jauna Murmu of Orissa to minor placings.
However, Commonwealth Games gold medallist discus thrower Krishna Poonia's first competition after a long injury lay-off due to a knee injury ended in disappointment as she pulled out in pain after first attempt. The Rajasthan athlete quit the competition early after a customary 55.45m throw.
Harwant Kaur of Punjab, who had won silver in the Commonwealth Games behind Poonia, took the gold by clearing 58.78m.
"She has just recovered from the injury and need some rest before the big event like the Asian championships," Poonia's husband-cum-coach Virender said.
The day also saw young triple jumper Arpinder Singh registering an upset by pushing national record holder Renjith Maheswary to the second place for the second time in four months this year with a decent jump of 16.32m.
Arpinder, the 18-year-old Punjab athlete who won a silver in the Asian Junior Championships, had won the triple jump event at the National Games in Ranchi in February with an effort of 16.62m.
Renjith, who changed his domicile from Kerala to Tamil Nadu, could only manage 15.96m. He was participating in his first competition of the year after recovering from an injury.
Maharashtra's Bipin Dev took the bronze with a jump of 15.86m.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu got its second gold through Army runner Ramadas Ramachandran in 3,000m steeplechase.
Running a tactical race, Ramachandran made a gallant effort to win the event with a personal best and new meet record time of 8:42.58.
Manipur's Sanjit Luwang (8:44.26) and Haryana athlete Jaiveer (8:45.16) made a desperate effort to catch him but to no avail.
O P Jaisha, running for Punjab, once again emerged triumphant in the women's 1500m in 4:21.32.
Originally hailing from Kerala, Jaisha was too good for others as she pulled away in style to finish ahead of her junior compatriots Jhuma Khatun of Jharkhand and S R Bindu from Kerala.
In the men's 1500m race, Ghamanda Ram gave his second best effort (3:48.12) to win gold. The Rajasthan runner is on a come-back trail and is one of the best 800m runners in the country.
As expected Kerala sprinters Sameer Mon and P K Priya emerged fastest men and women athletes by clocking 10.58 and 11.97 secs respectively in 100m race.
S K Mortaza proved his mettle to take the men's race in 47.05 secs.
Earlier in the morning, national record holder Deepmala Devi (Jharkhand) won the women's 20,000m walk with a modest time of 1 hr 47 min 19.29 secs. The men's title went to Madhya Pradesh's Maniram Patel in 1 hr 29 min 35 secs.
