Sahana Kumari qualifies for London Olympics

Hyderabad, Jun 23 (PTI) Karnataka high jumper Sahana Kumari became the 14 Indian athlete to qualify for the London Olympics after she cleared 1.92m during the opening day of National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships here today. Sahana erased the previous national meet record of 1.91m held by Bobby Aloysius of Kerala since 2004 during her effort at the GMC Balayogi Stadium here. Earlier, local girl Satti Geetha and Dharambir Singh emerged as the fastest on the opening day. Geetha performed to her potential in front of her home crowd and emerged as the winner in the 100m sprint. A member of the Indian 4x400m relay quartet which won the gold in the Doha Asiad six years ago, Geetha clinched the yello metal after pre-race favourite Haryana's Manisha was disqualified for a false start. Dharambir Singh (21), basically a 200m specialist, entered in men's 100m at eleventh hour and won the race in a marvellous 10.51 secs.