India's Priyanka Goswami and Akshdeep Singh secure Olympic quota in race walk mixed relay event

India’s Priyanka Goswami and Akshdeep Singh finished a disappointing 18th in the World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships in Antalya, Turkiye on Sunday, but it proved enough for them to secure Olympic quota marathon race walk mixed relay event.

Akshdeep and Goswami registered a timing of 3:05:03 to finish inside the top 20 while Munita Prajapati and Paramjeet Singh, the other Indian pair competing in World Championships in Antalya, finished 35th with a timing of 3:09:58.

The marathon mixed relay event is a new race-walking category that will be making its debut at the Paris Olympics, that takes place in the French capital in July and August later this year.

The event involves a pair of race walkers — one male athlete and one female — covering the full marathon distance of 42.195km. The male athlete covers the initial 12.195 km of the race, with the remaining 30km divided into three legs comprising 10km each the first of which is covered by the female race-walker and then alternated between the two teammates.

Both Akshdeep and Goswami have secured Olympic quota in the men’s and women’s 20km racewalk events respectively. Akshdeep however, is one of seven Indians who have qualified for the men’s 20km racewalk event, with Olympic rules permitting a maximum of three athletes per event per gender.

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It will be up to the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) to decide the three athletes that ultimately get to represent the nation in that event.

Indian 20km race walkers disappoint in Antalya

All 10 athletes on show in the 20km events — five each in men’s and women’s sections — dished out below-par timings with Servin Sebastian being the only Indian to finish in the top-20 but he too was way off the timings he has set this year.

Ram Baboo, the latest to achieve the Olympics men’s 20km race walk qualification standard clocking a personal best of 1:20:00 in the Dudinska 50 Meet in Slovakia, exited around the 2km mark, while Sebastian, Vikash Singh, Paramjeet Singh and Suraj Panwar, who have also met the Olympics qualifying standards, performed way below potential despite conducive weather in the Mediterranean seaside town.

Sebastian clocked 1:21.39 seconds, way off the Paris qualification time of 1:20.10 and the time of 1:20.03 he had set at the Indian Open Race Walking Competition on way to meeting the Olympic qualifying standard in January.

Vikash Singh, who came up with his season’s best performance of 1:21.59 here, finished 23rd while Suraj Panwar, with a time of 1:24.09, was a distant 40th among 76 athletes to finish the event.

The fifth Indian in the fray, Arshpreet Singh, finished 66th clocking a dismal 1:33.39.

In women’s 20km race walk, none of the five Indian contenders for Paris berths could come anywhere close to the Olympic cut-off timing of 1:29:20, with Pooja Kumawat being the best finisher at 42nd with a time of 1:40.27.

Manju Rani and Mokavi Muthurathinam were close at 43rd and 44th, clocking 1:40.31 and 1:40.33 respectively.

The other two Indians, Ramandeep Kaur (142.12) and Payal (1:42.32) finished 49th and 50th respectively in an event where 63 athletes completed the race.

The performance of the 20km race walk athletes will be of major concern for the AFI, given that they have to select the team for Paris out of the seven male athletes, who have met the Olympic qualifying standards, by June.

Each national federation can only send a maximum of three athletes in the men’s 20km race walk event and achieving the entry standard is just one part of the Olympic qualification. The difficult part is selecting the team, made even more difficult with Sunday’s performance.

With PTI inputs