Army runner won gold medal in men’s 10,000m at National Federation Senior Athletics Championship

Army’s Sawan Barwal was excited to have earned a place in the national team for the May 27-31 Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi, South Korea.

On Monday the Army runner from Mandi in Himachal Pradesh won gold medal in the men’s 10,000m on the opening day of the 28th National Federation Senior Athletics Championship here at Kochi’s Maharajas College.

On his way to the gold medal he clocked 28:57.13 to better the previous meet record of 28:57.90 set in 2007 by Surendra Singh in Kolkata. Barwal’s performance was also within the AFI (Athletics Federation of India) qualification time of 29:33.26.

“It was a good day for me to have booked a berth for the continental competition,” Barwal said of making his debut at the Asian Athletics Championships in May.

Barwal had chalked out his strategy for the race. He stayed with a bunch of eight runners half way through the race. The warm morning weather had no impact on him as he didn’t show signs of fatigue.

While keeping in mind the Asian qualification time, he surged ahead with five laps to go. Since he wasn’t challenged by his rivals, he had to run solo the last 2km of the race. “I could have done better had there been someone to push me in the second half of the race,” he said.

Abhishek Pal, representing Railways, won silver with a time of 29:14.86. Pal also dipped below the Asian Athletics qualification time of 29:33.26.

Kiran Matre of the Army claimed the bronze medal. He clocked 29:47.62.
The women’s 10,000m gold went to Maharashtra’s international runner Sanjivani Jadhav whose winning time was 33:44.43. Sanjivani missed the Asian qualification time of 33:24.79.

Seema of Himachal Pradesh took home silver with a time of 34:55.92. While Beby of Uttar Pradesh settled for bronze. Her time was 34:59.67.