Already qualified for Paris Olympics, Akshdeep Singh breaks own national record in men's 20km National Open race walk

Chandigarh: A Paris Olympics berth already secured, Akshdeep Singh of Punjab shattered his own national record en route retaining the men’s 20km title at the National Open Race Walking competition here on Tuesday. Akshdeep, who qualified for this year’s Olympics while winning the title in the 2023 edition of the National Open Race Walking Competition in Ranchi, clocked 1 hour 19 minutes and 38 seconds to better his earlier national mark of 1:19:55. Second place finisher Suraj Panwar of Uttarakhand also breached the Paris Games qualifying mark of 1:20:10 by clocking 1:19:43. Panwar is the fourth Indian in men’s 20km race walk event to qualify for Paris Olympics. Pramjeet Bisht and Vikas Singh had also qualified for the Paris Games during the Asian Race Walk Championships in Japan last year. A country can send only three athletes in an individual track and field event in the Olympics and it will now be up to the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) to determine who makes the cut for Paris Games out of the four race walkers.