Olympics qualified race walker Akshdeep breaks own NR in men's 20km

Chandigarh: Akshdeep Singh of Punjab broke his own national record while retaining the men's 20km title at the National Open Race Walking competition here on Tuesday, after having already secured a spot in the Paris Olympics.

Akshdeep, who qualified for this year's Olympics by winning the 2023 edition of the National Open Race Walking Competition in Ranchi, finished in 1 hour 19 minutes and 38 seconds, breaking his previous national record 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 the men's 20km race walk event to qualify for the 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.

With PTI inputs