New Delhi, April 16: Having recently smashed Indian athletics’ longest-standing national record, marathon runner Sawan Barwal has set another goal: winning the country’s first medal in the Asian Games since 1982 in the gruelling distance.
India’s last Asian Games medal in marathon was won by Hosur Kukkappa Seetharan at the 1982 Games in New Delhi. Before that, Chota Singh won a gold in the inaugural 1951 Asian Games in the national capital.
The legendary Shivnath Singh had held the national marathon record of 2:12:00 for 48 years. However, on Sunday, the 28-year-old Barwal broke that long-standing mark at the NN Rotterdam Marathon, finishing 20th with a new time of 2:11:58.
“This year, my main target will be Asian Games and I want to win a medal there. I will not participate in too many events,” Barwal said.
“I feel I can further improve my national record. I could have run around 2:10:00 even in Rotterdam had there been no cold wind. So, I can run faster than my current national record.
“Next year, there is Asian Marathon Championship. Then I would want to give my best in the 2028 Olympics.”
Barwal broke the national record in his debut race but said he was confident of achieving the feat as he had been preparing for that race since January.
“I was undergoing high altitude training at Coonoor and I was preparing well. I was confident of breaking the national record.
“The target was to run 2:10:00 and everything went according to the plan till the 40km mark. In the last two kilometres there were issues. I did not anticipate the cold wind and moreover, I had poured water on my body,” he explained.
He fell down twice – at around the 100m mark from the finish line and again just 10-20m before it.
“I had a blackout of may be 10 to 15 seconds but a volunteer came and helped me in standing up. Then I pulled through the finish line,” he reminisced. (PTI)
