It’s been raining medals for India on the penultimate day of the Birmingham Commonweath Games 2022 as another bronze was added to the tally, this time in racewalking. India’s Sandeep Kumar broke his personal best to finish third in the men’s 10000m race walk and clinched the bronze medal by completing the event in 38 minutes 49 seconds.
Sandeep, whose personal best was 46 minutes and 55 seconds previously, finished behind Canada’s Evan Dunfee who won the gold medal with a timing of 38 minutes and 36 seconds and Declan Tingay who took 38 minutes 42 seconds to win the silver medal.
Sandeep was leading from the front at the 1000m mark, however, slipped to the third place for the next two kilometres. Sandeep recovered to move forward to the first place again and maintain his position at the 4000m and 5000m marks and seemed to be on course for a historic gold medal in the sport for India.
However, unfortunately for him that was the last time when he was leading the event as he was not at the first place at any of the subsequent 1000m marks. Sandeep finished in third place at the 6000m mark before improving to second at 7000m. The same trend followed in the next two kilometers as well eventually to finish in the third place in the final 1000 meters.
President Draupadi Murmutook to Twitter to congratulate Sandeep on his achievement saying, “Congratulations to Sandeep Kumar for winning bronze in 10000m race walk at #CommonwealthGames. You put up your best performance and made our country proud. Your podium finish is a matter of joy for Indians.”
This was India’s second medal in CWG 2022 in racewalking after Priyanka Goswami’s historic silver medal on Saturday and third overall in the sport after Harminder Singh’s bronze in the 2010 Delhi games. Priyanka became the first woman to win a medal in the sport after she finished second in the women’s 10000m final.
