Indians disappoint in men's 20km race walk in Athletics Worlds

Indians disappointed in the men's 20km Race Walk competition at the 14th IAAF World Athletics Championships here today with K T Irfan being disqualified after raising hopes of a creditable finish till the halfway mark.
National record holder Irfan was in the sixth position after the halfway mark and was maintaining his spot just before touching the 15-km point.
But Irfan, who had finished 10th in the 2012 London Olympics, was stopped by the race officials before the three-fourth mark for race rule violations.
His two compatriots Gurmeet Singh and Chandan Singh finished 33rd and 34th with timings of 1 hour 26 minutes and 47 seconds and 1:26:51 respectively.

20 year-old Aleksandr Ivanov of Russia won the event in personal best effort of 1:2:58 while 2012 London Olympics gold winner Ding Chen (1:21:09) of China and Miquel Angel Lopez (1:21:21) of Spain were second and third respectively on the second day of the Championships.
Yesterday, Asian Games gold medallist Sudha Singh had failed to qualify for the women's 3000m steeplechase final round after finishing a disappointing 12th in her heat.
India are being represented by 15 athletes in the Championships.