City athlete Bopanna wins bronze in men’s 800 mts

Chennai: Athlete Bollanda Unnathi Aiyappa, who had won a gold medal setting a new meet record in the South Asian Junior Athletic Meet at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, here on Thursday, won her second gold medal setting another new meet record in women’s 200 mts on last day of the Meet.

Unnathi completed the race in the record timing of 23.91sec beating the old record of 24.32 mts set by A. Suseedran at Ranchi in 2013. India’s Nancy (23.11 sec) and Neeru Pathak (29.91 sec) finished in second and third place respectively.

Speaking to Star of Mysore, Unnathi Aiyappa said, she was delighted for having won two gold medals and added that she was in the best of the form because of continuous travelling.

“After World Junior event, I was not able to give my best. I took part in the South Asian Junior Championship with no expectations. But, having won two gold medals has delighted me,” she said.

Though, this was event of the season, Unnathi will be seen in action at the All India Inter University Athletic Championship to be held in December. She is the daughter of Intl. Athletic Coach B.P. Aiyappa and Olympian G.G. Pramila Aiyappa (Guddanda), residents of Bengaluru.

Meanwhile, city’s Thelapanda K. Bopanna won bronze in the men’s 800 mts run. He won bronze with a timing of 1:50.45 sec behind Sri Lanka’s H.D.S. Awishka (1:49.83sec) and India’s Vinod Kumar (1:50.07sec) who won gold and silver respectively.

Bopanna is the son of Dentist T.M. Kalappa and Rachana Kalappa, residents of V.V. Mohalla in Mysuru.

India with a total of 48 medals (21 gold, 22 silver and 5 bronze) finished in the top position of the medals tally followed by Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in second and third positions.