NAGPUR: On a pleasantly cool Sunday morning, Nagpur's Gopal Palandurkar and Adarsh Bhure scripted history at the University track by winning a silver and bronze medal in the 100m race of the 72nd Maharashtra state senior athletics championship.
In the late 90s, Nagpur had produced India's fastest sprinter Rajeev Balakrishnan, though the city's star athlete never won the 100m medal in any senior state championship of Maharashtra. In 1997, Nagpur Olympian Balakrishnan had bettered his own 100m mark for the third time by finishing the race in 10.36 seconds in the nationals. Though he clinched a medal in the 200m race, Rajeev had missed the 100m medal at any Maharashtra event. He then went to Bangalore and clinched 100m gold medals in various senior national championships, informed NDAA secretary Sharad Suryawanshi.
