Inter-State Athletics: Runners Race to Qualify for the Asian Games in the Hot Weather of Bhubaneswar

Indian athletes perform extremely well in long-distance races despite Bhubaneswar’s hot and humid weather to make it to the Asian Games qualification mark.

Written by: Arjita Gupta

Edited by: Krutarth Ghosalkar

Last Updated: June 16, 2023

The hot and humid weather made it difficult for the runners to cover the long-distance races in Bhubaneswar even though the event started at six in the morning. The top four finishers in the men’s 10,000m race made it within the cut for the AFI qualifier of 29 minutes and for the Hangzhou Asian Games (beginning in September), 30 seconds. The heat was at its peak but that did not deter army partners Gulveer Singh (29:03.78) and Kartik Kumar (29:01.84s) put up a good performance on Thursday at the Kalinga stadium.

Surendra Singh is the coach of both of these runners. Singh has an undisturbed national record for 15 years now in a 10,000m race with 28:02.89s. Kartik in a post-race press meet said that he wants to go past the record of coach saab and bag the Asian Games medal. Anjali Devi, a quartermiler from Haryana closed in at a better time than the cut for the AFI qualifier with 52.89s in the heats. The second fastest in the heats was Vithya Ramaraj with 52.97s. She is from Tamil Nadu and made it just 0.01 seconds off the qualifier mark.

However, it is anticipated that Vithya will clock in faster times as she is a consistent performer in recent times. None of the athletes however could finish the 20km race walk event within the Asian Games qualifying mark. In the women’s race, Bhavna Jat set a new meet record with gold clocking in 1:37:03s. Whereas, for the men’s race, Sandeep Kumar clocked in at 1:27:12s, making it to the top.

The results of the men’s finals are 29:22.36 secs by Pritam Kumar from Delhi. It was followed by 29:03.78 secs by Gulveer Singh from UP and 29:01.84 secs by Kartik Kumar from Uttar Pradesh. The men’s 20km race walk men’s results are 1:28:57 by Hardeep from Haryana, 1:28:21 by Servin S from Tamil Nadu, and 1:27:12 by Sandeep Kumar from Haryana.

For women, the results of the 10,000m final are 34:45.42 secs by Poonam Dinkar from Maharashtra. The event ended with 34:34.10 secs by Sanjivani Jadhav from Maharashtra, and 34:20.01 secs by Seema from Himachal Pradesh. The females’ 20km race walk results are 1:41:54.00 by Vandana from Karnataka, 1:40:33.00 by Priyanka Goswani from UP, and 1:37:03.00 by Bhavna Jat from Rajasthan.