Priyanka Goswami and Bhawna Jat put on disappointing shows in the women's 20m race walk here at Sapporo Odori Park on Friday as they failed to secure a top-15 finish at the Tokyo Olympics.
Priyanka finished in 17th position out of 58 participants with a time of 1:32:36 while Bhawna Jat came 32nd with the timing of 1:37:38.
Antonella Palmisano of Italy held her own in a strong field which included world record holder Jiayu Yang of China to claim victory. Yang had been near the front with Palmisano but dropped back. Antonella clocked 1:29:12, ahead of Sandra Arenas (COL) and LIU Hong (CHN) in silver and bronze.
Priyanka was up at a very good third place after the six-kilometer mark in women's 20km race walk but soon dropped out. She continued to stay in the top-10 up to the first 12km mark but dropped down in ranking as the race progressed into the final leg.
Earlier in the day, Gurpreet Singh dropped out of the men's 50km race walk event after competing for around 35Km as he was cramping due to the gruelling heat and humidity. At halfway point of 25km, Gurpreet was in the 49th position with the time of 2:01:54. Meanwhile, Dawid Tomala of Poland took control of the race walk at the 30km mark, and never relinquished it.
In fact, he extended his lead to over three minutes at one point, though he did look in incredible discomfort as he crossed the finish line. But soon a smile of relief replaced the pain as Dawid Tomala became the Olympic champion with a timing of 3:50:08. Germany's Jonathan Hilbert clinched silver with 3:50:44 while Canada's Evan Dunfee bagged the bronze with a timing of 3:50:59.
On Thursday, India's KT Irfan, Sandeep Kumar, and Rahul also had disappointing outings in the men's 20m race walk as they were not able to finish even in the top ten. Sandeep finished at the 23rd spot while Rahul and Irfan finished at the 47th and 52nd spots respectively.
( With inputs from ANI )
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