Bahadur Rana qualifies

India’s Basant Bahadur Rana qualified for the London Olympics in the men’s 50Km walk, meeting the grade at the World Race Walking Cup in Saransk, Russia, on Sunday.

Rana timed 4 hours 02 minutes and 13 seconds, a national record, to finish the event in 32nd place. The existing record of 4:16:22 is in the name of Gurdev Singh, set in 2005.

The ‘B’ standard for the Olympics is 4:09.00. Another Indian, Sandeep Kumar, also came under the ‘B’ standard, finishing 36th in 4:03:45. But if India are to field two walkers, both have to meet the stiffer ‘A’ standard – 3:59:00. Chandan Singh was 57th in 4:16:23 while in the team event, India were tenth.

In the 20Km walk on Saturday, Indians had finished fifth in the team event, a commendable achievement.