PTI
JAIPUR, FEBRUARY 28
London Olympian Basant Bahadur Singh Rana clinched the gold medal in men’s 50km race walk event on the second and final day of the National Championships here on Sunday.
Delhi walker Rana clocked 4 hours seven minutes 24 seconds to finish first but he must have been disappointed as he could not touch the revised Olympics qualification time of 4:06:00 on a fast Jaipur course which yesterday saw as many as seven men’s 20km race walkers breached Rio Games cut-off mark.
32-year-old Rana has a personal best of 3:56:48 which he clocked in the 2012 London Olympics, which was a national record then.
Uttarakhand’s Chandan Singh, who has already achieved Rio qualification mark in men’s 20km event, finished second with a time of 4:09:50 while Jitender Singh Rathore of Rajasthan took the bronze medal in 4:12:10.
In contrast to yesterday which saw a record seven race walkers go past the Olympics qualification standard, none could breach the Rio Games mark in men’s 50km race walk event today on a fast Jaipur course which was described by IAAF experts as world class.
Neena K T of Kerala won the gold in junior women’s 10km race walk competition. She clocked 53:12.49 to cross the finish line. Bhawna Jat of Rajasthan finished second in 53:27:79 for while Priyanka Patel of Uttar Pradesh clocked 53:32:95 to win the bronze medal.
In junior men’s 10km race walk competition, Vikash Singh of Bihar won the gold by clocking 44:32:50. Naveen of Delhi clocked 4:37:76 for the silver and Eknath Turamberker clocked 44:55:67 for the bronze medal.
