Telangana’s Lodenge Ramu broke the men’s Under-18 400m national record on Saturday at the 41st National Junior Athletics Championships 2026 in Chennai, and he was one of four athletes to rewrite the books on the second day of the meet at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

The 400m mark was the headline. Ramu’s gold-winning time of 46.80 seconds bettered Chandan Bauri’s previous record of 46.99 seconds, set in 2015. That old mark had stood for a decade. The meet record of 47.48 seconds was set last year by Sayed Sabeer, and Ramu cleared that too.

Telangana’s Lodenge Ramu broke a decade-old national record in the men’s Under-18 400m.

Ramu was not alone. Tamil Nadu’s Tharanesh C improved the boys’ Under-16 shot put national record with a gold-winning throw of 17.86m. That beat Nitesh Kumar’s previous mark of 17.42m, set in 2024. Tharanesh’s throw was more than four tenths of a metre clear of the old standard, a margin that does not happen by accident.

Records in the jumps and field

Rajasthan’s Chuki Birda won gold in the women’s Under-20 pole vault at 3.91m. That cleared Vanshika Ghanghas’s national record of 3.90m, set last year. The previous meet record of 3.80m belonged to Karthika V. Birda’s height moved the national standard up by a centimetre and reset the meet bar with it.

Uttar Pradesh’s young sprinter adds a meet record

Uttar Pradesh’s Tanu Chaudhary entered the record books in the women’s Under-18 400m. She won gold in 53.40 seconds, bettering the previous meet record of 53.85 seconds set by Jisna Mathew in 2015. Chaudhary is described in the report as a promising 400m runner, and her time shows why.

Why this matters for Telangana

For Telangana, the day belongs to Ramu. A teenager from the state went to Chennai, ran the fastest Under-18 400m the national championships has recorded, and took a decade-old national mark off the books. For a state that wants its young athletes to compete on the national stage, that is the kind of result that gets noticed in homes and sports clubs across the state.

The rest of the day’s results

The records were only part of the story. In the men’s Under-20 400m, Vaibhav Bhardwaj of Uttar Pradesh won in 47.45 seconds, ahead of Raj Chauhan of Maharashtra at 47.64 seconds and Thanish Gaddam of Maharashtra at 47.68 seconds. In the long jump, Jithin RC of Tamil Nadu leapt 7.64m to win, with Ayush Yadav of Delhi at 7.51m and Dhanush Raj M of Kerala at 7.50m.

Punjab’s Devansh Jagga won the men’s Under-20 discus with a throw of 55.35m. Yashraj Jain of Madhya Pradesh took second at 54.13m, and Usman Ali Khan of Madhya Pradesh was third at 53.74m. In the hammer throw, Kartik of Uttar Pradesh won with 67.54m, and his state teammate Aman followed at 67.19m.

Gujarat’s Jakhar Rahul topped the men’s decathlon with 7,125 points. Abhay Singh of Uttar Pradesh scored 6,697 points, and Aryan Prakash of Madhya Pradesh finished with 6,288 points. In the javelin, Krishan Chandra of Madhya Pradesh threw 74.83m to win, ahead of Pushpak Nelwade of Karnataka at 73.43m.

In the women’s Under-20 400m, Tahura Khatun of West Bengal won in 54.64 seconds. Vanshika Rathi of Uttar Pradesh was second at 55.08 seconds, and Maya of Punjab took third at 55.11 seconds. In the Under-18 400m, Sehnoor Bawa of Punjab finished second at 54.27 seconds, and Sahaya Jemima of Tamil Nadu was third at 55.66 seconds.

Among the younger age groups, Tejaswini G Rao of Karnataka won the girls’ Under-16 shot put with 13.48m. In the Under-14 triathlon, Saurav Bind of Uttar Pradesh took the boys’ title with 2,195 points, and Meera Bobal of Delhi won the girls’ event with 2,617 points. Jeena Basil of Kerala was second in the women’s pole vault at 3.80m.

The bigger picture

Four records in one day is a strong return for a national junior meet. Three were national records and one was a meet record, and the athletes who set them span Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The names on the record sheet are young, and the marks they set are now the standards that the next group of juniors will chase.

Ramu’s 46.80 seconds will be the number people remember from Chennai. It is a clean, fast, statewide story, and it arrived on a Saturday that belonged to young Indian athletes.