Olympian Manish Rawat from Uttarakhand won the inaugural men’s 35km race on the final day of two-day 8th National Open and 4th International Race Walking Championship in Ranchi’s Morabadi ground on Sunday.
He beat Tamil Nadu’s Ganapati Krishnan by a comfortable nine-minute margin but was outside the qualifying standard for next year’s World Athletics Championships in Oregon. The qualifying standard for the 2022 world championship was 2:35:00, which Rawat failed to achieve.
Rawat clinched gold with his timing of 2:49:12. Krishnan won silver by finishing the race in 2:58:23 while Delhi’s Vikash settled with bronze clinching the race in 3:08:43.
Women’s 35-km event on the other hand couldn’t take place due lack of entries. Against a minimum of three enrolments, only two entries had come, forcing organisers to cancel the event.
In the 50km men category, Punjab’s 36-year-old Gurpreet Singh claimed the top spot with a personal best effort over 3:59:42 seconds, becoming the fifth Indian to break the four-hour mark over the distance, read the statement from Athletics Federation of India (AFI). Ram Baboo (Uttar Pradesh) on the other hand won silver clocking the race in 4:05:10 and Sagar Joshi (Gujarat) with his timing of 4:12:06 pocketed bronze.
In 10km men under-20, Madhya Pradesh’s Vishvendra Singh (42:14) won gold followed by Uttarakhand's Paramjeet Singh Bishy (42:16) silver and Madhya Pradesh’s Bajrangi Prajapati (44:16) bronze. In the girl’s event in the same category, Uttarakhand's Reshma Patel (49:28) was adjudged first followed by Rajasthan’s Geeta Lohar (49:57) in second spot and Uttar Pradesh’s Munita Prajapati (51:30) in the third.
On day one of the event, three athletes — two men hailing from Haryana and a female from Uttar Pradesh have qualified for this year’s Tokyo Olympics in the race walking event after they sealed top slots in the 20km category. Two out of the three athletes had also set new national records with their unmatched timing. The trio—Sandeep Kumar and Rahul Kumar of Haryana and Priyanka Goswami of Uttar Pradesh have also qualified for the 2022 World Athletics Championship slated to be held in the US.
