In the Indian morning the fifth edition of India's National Road Race Championships began.
On the course near the Jawahardal Nerhu Stadium in New Delhi, today's events were those of:
- 10 km U20 men: with 62 men entered
- 10 km U20 women: with 17 women entered
- 50km men: with 22 men entered
10km U20 men
Of the 62 entered athletes, 52 were at the start.
Probably the average quality is not what we are used to in Europe, but as far as quantity is concerned, the development of race walk in this country is almost impressive.
But even at the qualitative level, something good is growing.
It was not easy to predict as many as four athletes under 44:00.00 of which one also touched the wall of 42:00.00.
To give a measure of comparison with Italy we indicate that during the last season was only one athlete who did a performance on road under 44:00.00 (Giacomo Brandi) while two were to achieve the same result in 10,000m track walk (Giacomo Brandi and Davide Marchesi).
Spain, which is known to be at a high world level in the juniors, has also had during the course of 2017 only two performances under 44:00.00 (Jose Manuel Perez Rubio and Kevin Cerro Gudino) whether it be road race or track.
This result should make us reflect on the potential that are emerging in this Asian country that is gaining the third power role of the Asian race walk after China and Japan.
In the 10km race then the victory went to Akshdeep Singh (IND) in 43:04.65.
Second place to Hardeep (IND) in 43:36.62
Third place to Manjeet (IND) in 43:36.67
Thirty-six athletes completed the race, 14 DNF and 1 DQ
10km U20 women
Also in this event there was a level result.
It was broken the national record of India that since November 22, 2004 belonged with the time of 49:16.51 to Priyanka Goswami.
The new record obtained with today's victory was established by Priyanka Patel (IND), an athlete born on 9.5.1998, with a time of 49:01.81
Second place to Bandana Patel (IND) in 51:23.52
Third place to Ramandeep Kaur (IND) in 52:12.18
Eighteen athletes at the start of which 17 have completed the race and 1 DNF.
50km uomini
Victory for Sandeep Kumar (IND) with a time of 3:56.39.71 (3:56:40 - season world leader), which is repeated after last year's victory.
The 2017 victory was obtained in 3:55:59 and represents the athlete's personal best. The Indian athlete who will turn 32 next May 1, 2018 will show a great regularity in these tests of the Indian Championship, obtaining today his third all-time performance (the second one got it in Taicang on May 3, 2014 in 3:56:22) .
Second place to Jitendra Singh Rathore (IND) in 3:48: 55.82 (3:48:56).
Also for him this result represents the second consecutive silver, obtained however with a new personal best (first time under 4:00:00), considering that in the championships of 2017 he had obtained a time of 4:02:11.
Third place to S. Damen Singh (IND) in 4:00:34.48 (4:00:35)
Full results (of the first day) in the section Results or download directly from this link: click here