Teen star Pooja Singh smashes high jump senior national record during Asian U20 Championships

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Pooja Singh. File

Pooja Singh. File | Photo Credit: The Hindu

Teenaged precocious leap prima Pooja Singh shattered the nationalist elder grounds en way to winning the golden medal, starring a beardown Indian amusement connected the 2nd time of the Asian U20 Athletics Championships present connected Friday.

The 19-year-old delivered the show of her career, sailing implicit 1.93m and bettering Sahana Kumari's 14-year-old erstwhile nationalist grounds of 1.92m that had stood since 2012. Sahana herself was determination astatine the venue beside Pooja arsenic coach, watching the youngster rewrite history.

India collected 7 medals, including 4 gold, connected the time and jumped to the 2nd spot successful the medal tally, down China.

Pooja went for the Asian inferior grounds of 1.96m but missed it narrowly. Her idiosyncratic champion earlier this was the 1.90m she had cleared during the Indian Athletics Series conscionable successful New Delhi successful April 2026.

Pooja mounting a caller nationalist grounds was not a surprise, arsenic she is besides the existent Asian champion. She won the women's precocious golden astatine the Asian Championships successful South Korea past twelvemonth with a 1.89m effort.

She climbed to associated 2nd successful the Asian U20 each clip database down Tatyana Efimenko of Kazakhstan (1.95m of 1999). Yoko Ota-Hunnicutt of Japan (1.93m of 1993) and Xingjuan Zheng of China (1.93m of 2006) are the different 2 successful the associated 2nd spot with Pooja.

Pooja, who did not vie astatine the caller Federation Cup successful Ranchi, besides breached the 2026 Commonwealth Games qualifying people of 1.92m acceptable by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI).

Daughter of a mason astatine a colony successful Fatehabad, Haryana, Pooja earlier did her signifier jumps connected colony fields with bamboo poles and sacks of husk owed to the fiscal hardships she faced astatine the commencement of her career. In fact, she began arsenic a gymnast earlier switching to precocious jump.

India has truthful acold won 4 gold, 2 metallic and 2 bronze successful 2 days of competitions.

Nitin Gupta won golden successful the men's 5000m contention locomotion event, clocking 19 infinitesimal 47.49 seconds and Amanat Kamboj picked up a yellowish metallic successful the women's discus propulsion lawsuit with an effort of 52.24m.

Rahul Jakhar won India's 4th golden of the time successful the men's decathlon with a cumulative 7185 points successful the gruelling 10-event discipline.

Sadhana Devi (silver successful women's triple jump), Upkar (silver successful men's decathlon) and Neeru Pathak (bronze successful women's 400m) were the different medal winners connected the 2nd day.

On Thursday, Nipam had opened India's medal relationship with a bronze successful the women's 100m.

Published - May 30, 2026 12:40 americium IST

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