Rana wins gold in 50km in National race walk C’ships

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 on Saturday 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 a 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 Saturday 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 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.