Inter-State athletics: Long-dance quartet brave Bhubaneswar heat to meet Asian Games qualification mark
Even though the long-dance races began as early as six in the morning, conditions were not pleasant for the runners in the hot and humid weather of Bhubaneswar.
The gruelling men’s 10,000m race saw the top-four finishers complete their races within the AFI qualifying cut of 29 minutes, 30 seconds for the Hangzhou Asian Games, slated for September. Army partners Kartik Kumar (29:01.84s) and Gulveer Singh (29:03.78) led the pack as they did not let the heat deter them from putting on a promising display at the Kalinga stadium on Thursday.
Interestingly, both runners train under coach Surendra Singh, who still holds the 10,000m national record of 28:02.89s that has not been durbed for almost 15 years. At the post-race press meet, Kartik said he wanted to go after “coach saab’s” record. “Now I just want to break his record and bag an Asian Games medal,” he said.
Quartermiler Anjali Devi of Haryana clocked better timings than the AFI qualifying cut, clocking 52.89s in the heats itself. Vithya Ramaraj from Tamil Nadu was the second fastest overall in the heats with 52.97s just 0.01s off the qualifying mark. But faster timings can be expected from Vithya, who has been performing consently for quite some time.
In the 20km race walk events, none of the athletes could finish within the qualifying mark for the Asian Games. Seasoned walker Sandeep Kumar took the top spot with 1:27:12s while Bhawna Jaat (1:37:03s) took gold with a new meet record.
Results (all finals):
Men: 10,000m: Kartik Kumar (Uttar Pradesh) 29:01.84 secs, Gulveer Singh (UP) 29:03.78 secs, Pritam Kumar (Delhi) 29:22.36 secs.
20km race walk: Sandeep Kumar (Haryana) 1:27:12, Servin S (Tamil Nadu) 1:28:21, Hardeep (Haryana) 1:28:57
Women: 10,000m: Seema (Himachal Pradesh) 34:20.01 secs, Sanjivani Jadhav (Maharashtra) 34:34.10 secs, Poonam Dinkar (Maharashtra) 34:45.42 secs.
20km race walk: Bhavna Jat (Rajasthan) 1:37:03.00, Priyanka Goswani (UP) 1:40:33.00, Vandana (Karnataka) 1:41:54.00.
