Tribune News Service
Vinayak Padmadeo
New Delhi, August 6
Race walker Priyanka Goswami sported an ear-to-ear smile, such was her joy. After all, she had just won a hard-earned silver medal in the 10,000 metre race walk event after coming through a tough battle with Kenya’s Emily Wamusyi Ngii in Birmingham today.
Even though this particular event is not part of the Olympics sports programme — Priyanka participated in the 20,000m race walk event in Tokyo last year — the 26-year-old was happy that she ended her drought at major meets, that too with a personal best of 43 minutes, 38.83 seconds.
Australia’s Jemima Montag won gold in 42:34.30, a new CWG record. The second Indian in the field, Bhawna Jat, finished eighth overall but she too registered a personal, 47:14.13. “I am very happy as this is one of the biggest achievements for me. We know that winning a medal in race walking is very tough,” Priyanka said during an online conference all on Saturday.
“More than making history by winning the first medal, I am happy that I have opened my account with this medal and hopefully after this I will win some more and this thought makes it all the more important,” she added.
Priyanka had her strategy worked out for most part of the race but suffered a couple of hiccups before recovering to take the second place. First she was shown the yellow paddle after 6,000 metres for suspect technique and then she had to raise her pace to keep up with the leaders.
“When I was shown the card, I thought, ‘Why was he doing that? Did it happen because of some politics?’ I had already run over 6,000m by then,” she explained. “After that I kept my calm and thought that even if I was shown two more cards, I would only be deducted a minute so if I have enough distance I could still win a medal.” “It was a simple strategy. First was to keep pace for most part of the race and see how the body was reacting in the last two kilometres. I slowed down a bit but then I upped my pace. The race was slow and in the last five laps I just forgot about the Kenyan runner and concentrated on my own lap timings,” she added.
Interestingly, this was the first time she was participating in 10K walk on the track. “It wasn’t difficult as I have participated in both 35K and 20K races. Compared to that, this was not that difficult at all. All I had to do was keep track of my lap timings,” Priyanka said.
‘Good day for athletics’
Athletics Federation of India president Adille Sumariwalla, who was among the cheering squad in Priyanka’s corner, said the Indians have shown they could compete with the Kenyans.
“It was a very good day for us Indians. We have already won four medals in track & field, which is the highest in the Commonwealth Games outside of India,” Sumariwalla said.
“Avinash Sable broke another national record in 3,000m steeplechase and Priyanka too registered her personal best. But the thing that made us happy was that both of them competed well against the Kenyans,” he added.
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