Punjab’s Gurpreet Singh wins 50km race walking event in National Championships

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh/Ranchi, February 14

Race walker Gurpreet Singh won the men’s 50km race walk event at the 8th National Championships here on Sunday.

The 38-year-old Army man from Patiala won the event by completing the race in three hours, 59 minutes, and 42 seconds (3:59:42s).

Earlier, the Army man had won a silver medal in the 50km event at the 7th National Race Walking Championship in Ranchi.

On Saturday, Sandeep Kumar, Rahul Kumar and Priyanka Goswami had qualified for the 20km event Oregon World Athletics Championships to be held from July 15 to 24 next year after winning 20km event.

The victories also helped them secure the quota for the Tokyo Olympics.

Sandeep and Priyanka, in fact, broke the national records during the course of their win.

On his way to winning gold, Sandeep clocked one hour 20 minutes and 16 seconds to crack the Olympic qualification time of 1:21 minutes. Rahul, 34, too, bettered the Olympic qualification time, crossing the finish line at 1:20.26 to clinch silver.

Priyanka, 24, crossed the line with a time of one hour 28 minutes 45 seconds, which was better than the Olympic qualification time of one hour 31 minutes for women. — With IANS