Irfan finishes 26th in 20km walk at Worlds

National record holder Irfan Kolothum Thodi finished 26th in the men's 20 km event at the IAAF World Race Walking Cup here Sunday.

The Indian clocked 1:21:09 -- his best time this season -- and was the best-finisher among the five Indians in the event. Overall, the Indian walkers finished eighth in the team event out of a total of 17 teams.

Meanwhile, Asian Championship bronze medallist Gurmeet Singh clocked 1:21:20 to finish 27th and this was Gurmeet's season best timing as well.

Devender Singh (1:22:07) and K. Ganapathi (1:22:41) produced their personal bests to finish 33rd and 41st, respectively, while former national record holder Basanta Bahadur Rana clocked 1:23:15 to finish 48th.

The walk witnessed a sensational finish as Ukrainian Ruslan Dmytrenko pulled off an incredible victory, dashing the hopes of reigning World Champion Aleksander Ivanov and China's Olympic champion Ding Chen. The Ukrainian timed 1:18:37 while local boy Ding Chen clocked 1:20:28 to end 15th.

The national anthem was played twice for Ukraine as they also added the team title in the event to their kitty while China and Japan took the silver and bronze respectively.