Sandeep Creates Record

Sandeep Kumar clocked a National Record 3 hours 55 minutes 59.05 seconds in winning the 50 kilometre gold in the Max Bupa National race walking championship.

The 30-year-old Sandeep, who beat Jitender Singh and Chandan Singh of the Services in clinching the gold for Haryana, had set the earlier mark of 3:56:22.00 in 2014.

In the 20 kilometre walk, in which Gurmeet Singh was disqualified and the ace of the Rio Olympics Manish Rawat did not start, national record holder K.T. Irfan clinched the gold with a time of 1 hour 22 minutes 43.48 seconds.

Irfan had clocked his national record 1:20:21.00 in the London Olympics.

Devender and K. Ganapathi made it a sweep of medals for Services behind Irfan.

In the women’s 20 kilometre walk, Priyanka of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) grabbed the gold with a time of 1:37:58.32, comfortably ahead of Shanti Kumari and Rani Yadav of the Railways.

National record holder Khushbir Kaur, who had registered the best time of 1:31:40.00 in May 2014, did not start the race.