Raut sisters do India proud

Pune, Mar 11 (UNI) Efforts of twin sisters Monika and Rohini Raut of Maharashtra helped India capture the team gold in the Under-20 Junior Girls event in the ninth edition of the Asian Cross Country Championship at Amman in Jordan, according to reports reaching here.

Amateur Athletic Federation of India joint honorary secretary Pralhad Sawant, who is also the secretary general of the Maharashtra Amateur Athletic Association (MAAA), today informed that the Raut siblings, who hail from Nagpur, not only won the gold for the team yesterday but, in the process, claimed the individual gold and silver medals respectively.

Besides the Raut sisters, the other members of the junior squad were Swati Ghadve from Pune and Saloni Choudhary of Uttar Pradesh.

Monika, who had dominated the national cross country championship at Vishakhapatam and later the Federation Cup meet at Karnataka, carved out the win completing the six-kilometer race in a time of 24 minutes and 23 seconds to claim the gold. Her twin sister Rohini emulated her by bagging the individual silver, clocking 24 minutes and 30 seconds.

The event had attracted long-distance runners from 20 Asian coutries.

The India team had a total of six long-distance runners. Indian Railways with six runners and the Services with four runners had also participated. But, it was the junior team which brought laurels to the country.

UNI