Manipur's Daman Singh wins 50km race walk event in National C'ships

Sanabam Daman Singh of Manipur won the men's 50km race walk event on the second and final day of the National Championships on Sunday. The 30-year-old Singh won the event in 4 hours, 8 minutes and 10 seconds, well outside the Olympic qualification standard of three hours and 50 minutes. Gurpreet Singh of Punjab, 35, was second with a timing of 4:09:44s while Anjani Singh (Uttar Pradesh) finished third clocking 4:22:37s.

Last year's winner Jitendra Rathore (Rajasthan) and runner-up Sagar Joshi (Gujarat) were among the eight competitors who did not finish the gruelling race. In the men's Under-20 10km race walk event, Haryana's Amit won the gold with a national record time of 40 minutes 28 seconds, bettering the earlier mark set by Akshdeep Singh in the National Junior Athletics Championships here in 2018.  He led a bunch of six athletes who breached the World Junior Athletics Championships qualification standard of 43:30s. Paramjeet Singh Bisht (Uttarakhand), Parveen Kumar (Haryana), Vishvendra Singh (Madhya Pradesh), Sanjay Kumar (Rajasthan) and Bajrang Prajapati (Uttar Pradesh) were the other athletes who came home inside the junior worlds mark.  In the girls Under-20 10km race walk event, Munita Prajapati, 18, beat familiar rival Baljeet Kaur Bajwa and also achieved World Junior Athletics Championships qualification standard of 50:30s with a winning timing of 50:15.00s.  Punjab's Baljeet Kaur finished one second slower than that world standard. The defending champion Roji Patel (Uttarakhand) won bronze this time.

Results

Men's 50km: 1. Sanabam Daman Singh (Manipur) 4:08:10; 2. Gurpreet Singh (Punjab) 4:09:44; 3. Anjani Singh (Uttar Pradesh) 4:22:37

Men's U-20 10km: 1. Amit (Haryana) 40:28.00; 2. Paramjeet Bisht (Uttarakhand) 41:02.00; 3. Parveen Kumar (Haryana) 41:21.00

Women's U-20 10km: 1. Munita Prajapati (Uttar Pradesh) 50:15.00; 2. Baljeet Kaur Bajwa (Punjab) 50:31.00; 3. Roji Patel (Uttarakhand) 51:11.00.