Athletics: Ram Baboo, Manju Rani break national records in 35km race walk

Ram Baboo and Manju Rani rewrote the men and womens 35km national records en route to winning gold medals on the concluding day of the National Race Walking Championships here on WednesdayThe 23yearold Manju representing Punjab became the first Indian woman to clock sub3 hour in 35km race walk event winning in 25754s as she broke the earlier national record of 30004s set last year by Ramandeep KaurBaboo of Uttar Pradesh on the other hand improved his own national mark of 23634s by nearly five minutes to 23236sHowever they failed to match the World Athletics Championships qualifying standards of 22940s men and 25130s womenThe 35km race walk is a very new event introduced in India only in 2021 in the wake of World Athletics decision to do away with the 50km event after the Tokyo OlympicsFor Manju it was the first win in five starts since preferring the 35km event in September 2021I have worked very hard for this and I am happy that I could break the national record today I will train harder and improve gradually to win laurels for the country Manju saidSeeking a hattrick of titles after winning the National Games in Gandhinagar and the National Open Athletics Championships in Bengaluru in October last Uttarakhands Payal was unable to stay abreast of Manju and finished the race a shade outside her personal best to take the silver medal with a timing of 30543sBandana Patel of Uttar Pradesh took the bronze with a personal best time of 31135sAlso Read Akshdeep Singh Priyanka Goswami qualify for Worlds and OlympicsDefending champion Ramandeep finished fifth with a below par timing of 32025sIn the mens 35km event a determined Baboo regained the crown that he had ceded to Juned Khan in April last yearThe 23yearold thus consolidated his position as the countrys preeminent 35km race walker having won backtoback titles in the National Games in Gandhinagar and the National Open Athletics Championships in Bengaluru in October last yearI had the confidence in my ability and knew that I had trained right for the event I am delighted that the course here encourages us to aim for improvement Baboo saidDefending champion Juned improved his personal best by four minutes but found Baboo a tough nut to crack and had to be satisfied with the silver medal this time He clocked 23604sThe vastly experienced Chandan Singh also lowered his personal best by over four minutes to 23655s but had to content with a fourth successive bronze medal in the nationallevel 35km eventsResultsMens 35km 1 Ram Baboo Uttar Pradesh 23136s New National Record 2 Juned Khand Haryana 23604s 3 Chandan Singh Uttarakhand 23655sWomens 35km 1 Manju Rani Punjab 25754s New National Record 2 Payal Uttarakhand 30543s 3 Bandana Patel Uttar Pradesh 31135sThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever