SPO -KHELO-ATHLETICS

Balakumar Nithin catapulted himself

among the country's top sprinters, capturing a golden double

in the athletics competition in the Khelo India Youth Games.

His under-21 200m gold medal-winning time of 21.57

seconds this afternoon would have fetched him a top-16 rank in

India last year, a media release said.

"I had done everything right in practise. And having

won the 100m despite a bad start, I was confident that I could

complete the double," Nithin was quoted as saying in the

release.

Meanwhile, Karnataka's AT Daneshwari also completed

the sprint double, winning the girls under-21 200m in 24.58

seconds.

She was, however, overshadowed by Maharashtra's

Avantika Narale.

The under-17 runner, who missed out on the 100m final,

scripted a run in the 200m final that was faster than

Daneshwari's time by a hundredth of a second.

Another performance that raised expectations was

a 19.20m shot put effort by Amandeep Singh Dhaliwal (Punjab)

in the boys under-17 division.