The youngster recorded a brilliant time of 42:17.94 as he managed to secure India's second medal at the championships.
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Indian athlete Amit Khatri created history on Saturday as he bagged the silver medal in the 10,000m race walk at the World Athletics U20 Championships. The youngster recorded a brilliant time of 42:17.94. It was India’s second medal at the event. They had earlier won the bronze medal in the 4x400m mixed relay event. Khatri was the one who led the race for the most part and looked set to bag an incredible gold medal for India. However, he was unfortunate in the last couple of laps. Khatri was overtaken by Kenyan walker Heristone Wanyonyi who would go on to win the gold. Wanyonyi finished the race with a time of 42:10.84. Spanish athlete Paul McGrath bagged the bronze medal as he finished the race with a time of 42:31.11.
Khatri has been on a hot streak in which he has been setting new national records for a while now. He did it as recently as January this year at the Junior Federation Cup in which he emerged victorious in the 10,000m race walk in a pretty dominant fashion. The 17-year-old, on that occasion, finished with a time of 40:40.97 seconds. He was nearly half a minute ahead of second-placed Paramdeep Mor on that occasion. It was also more than three minutes quicker than his previous best of 43:36.26 at the National Youth Championships in 2019.
After the success of Saturday, Khatri said that it was not the result that he had expected, but he was still happy with the outcome and his silver medal. “It is not the result I expected but I am happy with the silver medal. Even though I came here five days before the event to acclimatise, the high altitude affected me,” Khatri said after his race. “At some point in the race, I would not breath properly but I am happy with the silver medal,” he added. It is natural for him to think that he fell short since he led the majority of the race. However, it is still an incredible achievement for the young Indian athlete.
Another Indian athlete, Baljeet Kaur also displayed a great performance as she managed to finish in seventh place in her event. She finished the race with a personal best time of 48:58.17 in the women’s 10,000m. Kaur had taken a very early lead but her strategy of taking frequent water breaks backfired and she lost a number of places. Her time was nearly a minute better than her previous personal best that she had achieved earlier in the month.
It was a disappointing performance for the Indian men’s 4x400m relay team as they could not qualify for the finals. They had finished last in the heats. The team, comprising Abdul Razzak, Sumit Chahal, Kapil, and Barath Sridhar, ran a season’s best timing of 3:10:62 but it was not enough to take the team to the all-important medal race. Kapil and Barath were part of the 4x400m mixed relay team that won the bronze earlier in the week.
