Bengaluru: It was contrasting but ultimately successful runs for Swati Gadhave and G Lakshmanan as the duo topped the Indian women’s and men’s list respectively in the TCS World 10K event, here on Sunday.
Gadhave, who returned from Denmark only the previous evening after her victorious exploits in the cross country event at the World Railway Games, ran a remarkable race which saw her finish within the top 10 among all the elite female runners.
And the fact that her time of 34:45 seconds could have been better by at least 30 seconds and possibly even the new record had it not been for a slight mistake at the end, makes her victory all the more bittersweet.
“In the last 100 meters, I saw one of the foreign girl on the ground and there was a lot of crowd there, so I thought it was the finish line and stopped. I lost at least 30 seconds there. If not I would have broken the record,” said a visibly upset Gadhave, who actually sat on the track thinking her race was done which robbed her of the record that was well within her grasp.
Meanwhile, Sanjeevani Jadhav took the second prize, stopping the clock at 36:13 seconds, while Meenu (37:18s) came in third in her first ever international 10K.
In the men’s section, it came down to Lakshmanan, Suresh Patel and Rio-bound marathon runner Nitender Singh Rawat keeping pace into the last 500 meters before the former two showed their acceleration to finish one-two.
The Federation Cup double winner crossed the finish line at 30:34 seconds to take the gold, two seconds ahead of Patel. Rawat came in at 30:53 seconds. “I took the lead in the last 500 meters. Suresh and Rawat were with me all the way,” said Lakshamanan.
Rawat was happy with his performance. “I’m a marathon runner so not that good at speed running. It was a good race but in the last 1km, their killing power was too much for me,” he stated.
