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

Teenaged excessive soar star Pooja Singh shattered the nationwide senior document en path to profitable the gold medal, main a robust Indian present on the second day of the Asian U20 Athletics Championships right here on Friday.

The 19-year-old delivered the efficiency of her profession, crusing over 1.93m and bettering Sahana Kumari’s 14-year-old earlier nationwide document of 1.92m that had stood since 2012. Sahana herself was there on the venue beside Pooja as coach, watching the teenager rewrite historical past.

India collected seven medals, together with 4 gold, on the day and jumped to the second spot within the medal tally, behind China.

Pooja went for the Asian junior document of 1.96m however missed it narrowly. Her private greatest earlier than this was the 1.90m she had cleared in the course of the Indian Athletics Collection meet in New Delhi in April 2026.

Pooja setting a brand new nationwide document was not a shock, as she can also be the present Asian champion. She gained the ladies’s excessive gold on the Asian Championships in South Korea final 12 months with a 1.89m effort.

She climbed to joint second within the Asian U20 all time record behind 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 opposite two within the joint second spot with Pooja.

Pooja, who didn’t compete on the current Federation Cup in Ranchi, additionally breached the 2026 Commonwealth Video games qualifying mark of 1.92m set by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI).

Daughter of a mason at a village in Fatehabad, Haryana, Pooja earlier did her apply jumps on village fields with bamboo poles and sacks of husk because of the monetary hardships she confronted at first of her profession. In reality, she started as a gymnast earlier than switching to excessive soar.

India has to this point gained 4 gold, two silver and two bronze in two days of competitions.

Nitin Gupta gained gold within the males’s 5000m race stroll occasion, clocking 19 minute 47.49 seconds and Amanat Kamboj picked up a yellow steel within the girls’s discus throw occasion with an effort of 52.24m.

Rahul Jakhar gained India’s fourth gold of the day within the males’s decathlon with a cumulative 7185 factors within the gruelling 10-event self-discipline.

Sadhana Devi (silver in girls’s triple soar), Upkar (silver in males’s decathlon) and Neeru Pathak (bronze in girls’s 400m) had been the opposite medal winners on the second day.

On Thursday, Nipam had opened India’s medal account with a bronze within the girls’s 100m.