Chennai (IND) hosted the Indian Road Walk Championships.
The numbers of the participating athletes are decidedly high, not at the levels of those of Japan and China, but certainly of interest.
Two days of competition: the first (16 February) took place the two 20km men and women, in the second (17 February) took place the 50km men and the two 10km U20 men and women.
20km men
The race was divided into two timed sessions, the first one of the strongest entries with 13 athletes at the start. and the second one for the weakest enries with 36 athletes at the start
It was a race with a very nice ending in which the first four athletes arrived in the space of two seconds.
Victory for Irfan Kholum Thodi (IND) in 1:26:18.
Second place for Devender Singh (IND) in 1:26:19
Third place for Sandeep Kumar (IND) in 1:26:19
Fourth place for Chandan Singh (IND) in 1:26:20
20km women
Also in this test an interesting participation with 22 athletes at the start
Victory for Soumya B (IND) in 1:40:25
Second place for Priyanka (IND) in 1:41:20
Third place for Ravina (IND) in 1:41:46
50km men
Cloudless days the temperature was around 30 degrees in the city of southern India
Jitendra Singh Rathore (IND) took the first place in the 50km men's competition for the sixth National Race Walk Championship.
Rathore ended the race with a time of 4:23.23.
The athlete from Rajasthan beat Joshi Sagar (IND) of the Gujarat region who set the time of 4:24:21 to get the silver medal.
The bronze medal was won by Pawan Kumar (IND) of the Haryana region which recorded a time of 4:30:49.
Jitendra Rathore was not satisfied with his time.
The National Open Walking Walkings championships have been designed as an opportunity to qualify for the World Athletics Championships to be held in Doha in September this year.
The qualification standard for that competition was 3:59:00. To get that entry standars, Rathore would have to record a time close to his personal best, which stood at 3:58:56 recorded at the Indian race walk championships in New Delhi in February of last year.
These are his statements after the race: "It was difficult to compete in the heat. I would have recorded a faster time but I was not able to push myself further because of today's conditions."
10km U20 men
Thirty-six athletes at the start.
Victory for Suraj Panwar (IND) in 43:19. A performance of about 1:50 above the national record of S. Patel established in 2012 (41: 29.85)
Second place for Juned (IND) in 43.32
Bronze medal at Farman Ali (IND) who stopped the clock in 44:50
10km U20 women
Victory for Koji Patel (IND) of the Uttarakhand region in 53:38 mounts distant from the national record of 49: 16.51 established by P. Goswami in 2014
Second place to Suvarna Kapase (IND) of the Gujarat region stopped almost two minutes and stopped the clock at 55:36.
Third place to Gurpreet Kaur (IND) in 57.00