Gurmeet, Khushbir successfully defend 20km race walk titles

Defending champions Gurmeet Singh and Khushbir Kaur won the men's and women's 20km title respectively, at the second National Open Race Walking Championships that commenced here today.
Gurmeet took 1 hour 22 minutes 58 seconds to complete 10 laps on the 2km loop course marked on Bristow Road here, and Khushbir, representing ONGC, clocked 1:36:25 hours to bag the women's crown.
Kerala's K T Irfan had to be satisfied with second position, finishing the course in 1:23:23 hours while Tamil Nadu's K Ganapathi (1:23:34) stood third to complete the podium.
In the women's section, Railway walker Rani Yadav (1:41:24) finished second while her teammate and former national champion L Deepmala Devi (1:42:34) was third.

Gurmeet made an early lead of about 100m from the rest of the field and maintained it till the end. A bunch of 10 walkers, including Irfan and former national champion Babubhai Panocha, followed him in pursuit to take leading positions as well as to qualify for next month's Asian 20km Race Walking Championships at Nomi City, Japan.
Gurmeet's final timing was just 19 secs behind the world leading performance of the year registered by Dane Bird-Smith of Australia at the Oceania Championships at Hobart on February 2.
With this win Gurmeet assured a place in the Indian team for the continental event where he had earlier won a silver and bronze medal.