Federation Cup athletics off to a low-key start

Bhubaneswar: Defending champion and joint national record holder 400m hurdler Vithya Ramraj pulled out of her event due to back pain as the National Federation Cup athletics championships made a low-key start here on Sunday.

Vithya, part of the Indian women's 4x400m relay squad that booked a Paris Olympics berth in Bahamas recently, pulled out immediately after the start of the women's 400m hurdles final race at the Kalinga Stadium.

Veerpal Kaur of Punjab won the gold with a very slow time of 59.43 seconds. Salini Valupararambil of Kerala was second with a time of 1:00.73 while Ramandeep Kaur of Punjab took the third spot in 1:01.29.

The 25-year-old Vithya had run the first leg of the first round Olympic qualifying heat race but was replaced in the second round by Rupal Chaudhary in Nassau in the World Relays.

She had equalled the legendary P T Usha's 400m hurdles national record of 55.42 seconds during the Asian Games in Hangzhou in October last year.

"I am having back pain. There is still jet lag also as we returned from Bahamas just a few days ago," Vithya said.

Jyothika Sri Dandi, another member of the relay squad, said, "It was an intense training and competition (for one month in Bahamas) with Olympic qualification being the target, it was very intense. So, we are kind of taking time to get into another competition."

Vithya of Tamil Nadu had won the 400m hurdles gold in the last edition of this competition with a time of 57.51 seconds.

The men's 400m hurdles was won by Santosh Kumar of Tamil Nadu with a time of 50.04 seconds. Nikhil Bhardwaj (50.92) of Punjab and Dhaval Mahesh Utekar (51.13) of Gujarat were second and third respectively.

The four-day event has become a high-profile one after Olympic and world champion javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra decided to participate in it. He is competing in a domestic event for the first time in three years. He had taken part in the 2021 edition of the same event.

The qualifying round of the men's javelin event will be held on Tuesday while the final will be on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a dope testing team of National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) has arrived here to take samples from the athletes.