Uttar Pradesh’s 18-year-old hammer thrower Anushka Yadav sprang a massive surprise as she smashed the national record with a stunning performance while pole vaulter Dev Meena also set a new national mark on an eventful opening day of the National Inter-State Championships here on Wednesday.Anushka, who hails from a farmer’s family at Baleni village in Baghpat district of Uttar Pradesh, sent the chain and the iron ball to 67.02m to the amazement of those present at the Kalinga Stadium, bettering the nine year old previous national mark of 65.25m set in 2017 by Sarita Singh. She is currently the youngest among the national record holders in athletics.She improved more than four metres on Wednesday as her previous official personal best was the 62.89m while winning gold in the National Games last year.In fact, Anushka smashed the national record twice out of the six attempts she had. She began with a 62.07m and then went past Sarita’s previous national record with a second round throw of 65.64m. She then cleared 64.81m in her third throw and came up with 61.89m and a foul in the next two rounds before producing a massive 67.02m in her last attempt.Her first round throw even bettered the Asian Games qualifying mark of 61.72m set by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI).She is, however, in the 11th place among the Asian hammer throwers so far in the season.Anushka initially interested to run 100m but soon shifted to hammer throw at her local school on the advice of her father Sushil Yadav, who is also her formative coach. Sushil was also a former hammer thrower.“My father makes me play hammer. I have three personal coaches, including my father and Chirag Yadav. I trained at my local ground,” she said after her feat.“I want to throw 70m plus and win gold in the Asian Games.”She suffered a ligament fracture in March but recovered soon enough to be able to compete in the National IntSet featured imageer-State Championships.“It happened in March when I tried to fix some problem in our tractor at our piece of land at home. My brother and father were also there at that time. Luckily, I recovered soon enough.”She said she was given the hammer for her to throw when she was 12 years old.In the men’s pole vault, Madhya Pradesh’s Dev Meena cleared 5.46m to break the previous national record of 5.45m. In the Federation Cup last month, both Meena and Kuldeep Kumar had cleared 5.45m for the then national record.Kumar, also representing Madhya Pradesh, was third with 5.20m while G Reegan of Tamil Nadu was second with 5.30m.Both Meena and Kumar have been named in the 32-member Indian team for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.Meanwhile, national record holder 100m hurdler Jyothi Yarraji made a stunning return to competition after a one-year injury lay-off as she ran sub-13 seconds to breach the Asian Games qualifying time set by the AFI.Yarraji, who underwent a successful ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) surgery in July last year, ran 13.14 seconds to go past the AFI’s Asian Games qualifying standard of 13.34 seconds in the heat race itself.Later in the final, she ran an impressive 12.99 seconds to win the gold.The 26-year-old, who ran the race with tapes on both legs, had won a silver in the 2022 Asian Games in China.Her national record stands at 12.78 second which she had set in 2023. She had suffered the injury in June last year while training.“I was expecting better timing but I felt so good. Exactly this day last year I got injured. The same day I came back to track and I showed up myself. It means a lot to me,” Yarraji said.“I’m feeling good, comfortable. Not feeling nervous, though I’m doing competition after one year.”Thanking her coach James Hiller, she said, “Yesterday he wrote a big letter, saying how hard we worked. And he gave me my favorite blueberries and toys.“I don’t know how physically I’m strong. But mentally I’m 10 times better than before. So this is what makes me.”Asked if she ever thought during her recovery period that it could be the end of her journey, she said, “That also came to my mind. But I kept myself saying that it’s okay Jyoti. You have proved yourself.”“There are three months to Asian Games. I will take care of my knee and I want to win gold there.”