Gaurang Amre breaks Sumariwalla's 35-year-old record in 200m dash

Gaurang Amre of RA Podar College (Matunga) at the University Pavilion, Marine Lines yesterday.

Gaurang Amre of RA Podar College (Matunga) broke the men's 200m inter-college record clocking 21.7 seconds in the Mumbai University Annual Athletics Meet at University Pavilion, Marine Lines yesterday thereby erasing the long-standing previous mark of 22.2s set by current Athletics Federation of India president Adille Sumariwalla way back in 1979. The 19-year-old finished ahead of Akshay Khot (22.2s) of Rizvi College (Bandra) and Sunny Patel (22.4s) of Veer Wajekar College (Navi Mumbai).

Gaurang Amre of RA Podar College (Matunga) at the University Pavilion, Marine Lines yesterday.

In the 100m, Amre equalled the meet record of 10.7s held since 2002 by St Andrews' Farhan Khan to win the gold, while Swapnil Mankar (10.9s) finished second and Deepak Kharde (11.0s) won bronze.

Adille Sumariwalla

Thane resident Amre is elated to have broken Sumariwalla's record. "When I was told that I created a new meet record (200m), I was not aware whose record I had broken. Later, when I read the name of Adille Sumariwalla, I couldn't believe it. This is the best day of my life. I immediately called my dad, who was also a national-level athlete. He was happy too," said first year Bachelor of Commerce student Amre who had clocking a similar time at the recent West Zone nationals in Raipur (Oct 7-8).

Sumariwalla wasn't aware that his mark had been erased. "As I'm in Delhi, I was not aware that my college record has been broken. While I'm happy for that kid, it's shameful to see that it took so long for it to happen. The current crop enjoys much better facilities than what we had. We ran wearing bad shoes and on a mud track. Kids nowadays are distracted by TV and Internet. It's not good for a record to stand for 35 years. Records should be broken every two to three years," said Sumariwalla.