Man Singh ran his personal best to clinch the men’s title in an extremely competitive race while Jyoti Gawate defended the gold she won last time in the New Delhi Marathon on Sunday.
The 33-year-old Singh clocked 2:14:13s to shave off more than two-and-a-half minutes from his earlier personal best of 2:16:58 recorded during the Mumbai Marathon last month where he had finished second among Indian runners.
Singh pocketed the winner’s cheque of Rs 1,50,000.
Belliappa AB and Karthik Kumar took the silver and bronze respectively, clocking 2:14:15 and 2:14:19 to complete the 42.195km course.
All the three podium finishers breached Hangzhou Asian Games entry standard of 2 hours and 15 minutes set by Athletics Federation of India (AFI).
But merely breaching the entry standard does not guarantee an athlete a place in the Indian team for the upcoming Asian Games. The entry standard was just the cut off for consideration for selection and AFI will decide the team based on several factors, including medal winning prospect.
The bronze winner in the 2018 Asian Games had clocked 2:18:48 and the Indian trio’s timings on Sunday were much better than that. Army man Belliappa gave a tough fight to Singh till the very end and finished just two seconds behind the winner, also improving upon his personal best by more than two minutes.
Kumar crossed the line four seconds behind to take the bronze.
In the women’s section, Jyoti missed the Asian Games entry standard (2:37:00) as she won the race with a time of 2:53:04. Ashvini Jadhav (2:53:06) and Jigmet Dolma (2:56:41) took the other two positions on the podium.
Jyoti’s timing was, however, much better than the 3:01:20 she had clocked last year.
More than 16,000 runners took part in the four categories, making it one of the biggest marathon turnouts in the country. The other categories were Half Marathon, 10K and 5K races. The New Delhi Marathon is recognised as a National Marathon Championship by the AFI.
Legendary Kenyan middle-distance runner and New Delhi Marathon brand ambassador David Rudisha flagged off the race.
“I was stumped by the enthusiasm among the runners. I couldn’t stop myself from cheering as I saw India’s top marathoners enter the Nehru Stadium well under the qualifying mark,” Rudisha, the two-time Olympic gold medallist and world record holder in 800m, said.
Results: Marathon (Elite): Men: 1. Man Singh (2:14:13); 2. Belliappa AB (2:14:15); 3. Karthik Kumar (2:14:19).
Women: 1. Jyoti Gawate (2:53:04); 2. Ashvini Jadhav (2:53:06); 3. Jigmet Dolma (2:56:41).
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