Ram Babu and Manju Rani set national records in the men’s and women’s 35 km events respectively to win gold medals on the last day of the race walking championship here on Wednesday. The 23-year-old Manju, representing Punjab, completed the 35 km race walk in less than three hours. He won with a timing of two hours 57 minutes and 54 seconds. During this, she broke the national record of three hours and four seconds set by Ramandeep Kaur last year.
Uttar Pradesh’s Ram Babu improved the previous national record by almost five minutes with a timing of 2:36:44. The previous national record was 2:32:36. Both these players, however, failed to qualify for the World Athletics Championships. For this, the qualifying time of two hours 29 minutes and 40 seconds has been kept in the men’s category while two hours 51 minutes and 30 seconds has been kept in the women’s category.
The 35 km race is a new event in India in 2021 following World Athletics’ decision to scrap the 50 km race walk after the Tokyo Olympics. Among women, Payal of Uttarakhand stood second while Vandana Patel of Uttar Pradesh stood third. In the men’s section, defending champion Junaid Khand of Haryana won the silver, while veteran Chandan Singh (Uttarakhand) won the bronze.
