Delhi’s Soumya B stunned the rest of the field at the National Race Walking Championships when she won the women’s 20 km record in a new national record time of 1:31:28.72.
She shaved 12 seconds off Khushbir Kaur’s old record of 1 hour, 31 minutes and 40 seconds as she won her first national championships. Kaur, the previous national record holder, finished second.
She finished 48.24 seconds behind Soumya, who shaved almost ten minutes off her previous personal best. The 27-year-old champion and Punjabi racewalker Kaur train together under Alexander Artsybashev at the national racewalking camp in Bengaluru.
Soumya is an employee of the CRPF in New Delhi, having landed the job in 2013 but originally hails from the village of Vattapara, in the Trivandrum district of Kerala. Her father, who worked in a stone mining quarry, saw the potential in her early as she was selected for the Kerala Sports Council Hostel in Kollam.
She originally started out competing as a long distance runner, specialising in 3000 metres and above. She was asked to switch over to racewalking, which she says was a ‘good move for her’, considering that she got into the national camp in 2016.
She was disqualified at last year’s open nationals in Chennai after three faults and trailed Kaur for most part of the race, passing her on the last lap. Kaur’s sizeable lead slipped away at the end as Soumya’s final push saw her beat Kaur for the first time ever.
Soumya said that although she was closing in, she had no idea that they were close to the finish line, “It’s only when the bell rung that I came to know that we were nearing the end. There was a slight decline in the slope that also helped me.”
Last year’s champion Priyanka Goswami could only finish sixth as four women finished under the Asian Games qualifying time of 1 minute and 35 seconds. Karamjit Kaur of Haryana claimed third place with a time of 1:34:08.60.
Khushbir spoke about the competition being vital to her training regiment in light of the Asian and Commonwealth Games. “I felt a pain in my body in the final lap so I slowed down a little. But I am not worried. My goal was simply to finish under the qualification standard here and I managed to do that,” said Khushbir who finished 54th in Rio 2016.
With very little time between the Asian 20 km racewalking championships to be held in Japan and the Commonwealth Games in April, the Athletics Federation of India is likely to send it’s second-string team to the March event, preserving it’s top walkers for Gold Coast.
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