India’s Ram Baboo on Saturday achieved the Paris Olympics men’s 20km race qualification standard, clocking a personal best time of 1:20:00 at the Dudinska 50 Meet in Slovakia. Baboo, a bronze winner in the 35km walk race at the Hangzhou Asian Games, gave a good account of himself in this Race Walking Tour Gold-Level event finishing third.

This is the first time an Indian athlete is finishing on the podium in this meet. The cutoff mark for Olympic qualification is 1:20:10.