Undisputed National decathlon champion for eight years, Kulwinder Singh created history, erasing a 33-year-old record by securing a whopping 7325 points in the Indian Oil National Combined Athletic Championship that concluded in Chennai on Tuesday.
Karnataka's Pallavi Sukar also set a new mark in the pentathlon for girls' under-16 with a tally of 3167 points, erasing the previous record of AP's Mythili (3042, set at the 1995 Nationals).
Kulwinder, who has been winning the national and open national decathlon titles since 1997, needed to win the 1500m (the last of the ten events) under 4min 38 secs to erase the record of V.S. Chauhan (set at the Munich Olympics in 1972 at 7306 pts).
The 27-year-old Roorkie-based Bengal Engineering Corps armyman took only 4:36.08 secs to accumulate 700 points in the 1500 metres.
After winning the title, Kulwinder said, "I was watching the clock. I had a minute and 10 secs for the last 400 metres and as per my plan, I surged myself in the last 70 metres for the mark.
"I hope to do well in the Korea ATF meet. My aim now is cross 7500 mark and then win the gold medal in the Doha Asian Games," Singh said.
This is the third occasion that Kulwinder has crossed the 7000 mark. Jora Singh (Har-7073) and Mandeep Kumar (AP-6897) secured the silver and bronze medals respectively.
Bengal's Sushmita Singha Roy won her heptathlon back-to-back title with a total of 5419 points followed by Olympian Soma Biswas (Ben-5074) and Roselin Arokiamary (TN-4465).
