Ram Baboo walks away with gold

The Army’s international race walker, Ram Baboo, dominated the 35-km event at the 12th edition of the Indian Open Race Walking Competition organised at Sukhna Lake.

His clocked 2:32:53.50 to win the gold medal. Baboo also holds the national record of 2:29.56 set in 2023 in Slovakia.

Payal won the 34-km race walk with a timing of 2:51:48.76, followed by Manju Rani (2:55:34.19) and Ramandeep Kaur (2:57:03.94). The women’s 20-km race walk gold went to Ravina of Haryana. She clocked 1:35:58.80.

In the men’s U-20 5-km event, Tushar Panwar (Uttarakhand) 20:06.83, Sachin Garhwal (Rajasthan) 20:07.43 and Ritik Kumar (Rajasthan) 20:20.52 claimed the top three positions, while in the girls’ U-20 event, Aarti (Haryana) 22:32.81, Mahima Choudhary (Rajasthan) 22:52.99 and Payal (Haryana) 24:01.34 bagged the top honours. In the women’s 20-km event, Haryana’s Ravina won the top medal, while Munita Prajapati of UP finished second and Shalini of Uttarakhand third.