India's Ram Baboo breaks national record in 35 km race walk

DUDINCE: Ram Baboo an Indian race walker managed to set a new national record in the men's 35km at the Dudinska 50 2023 meet in Dudince, Slovakia on Saturday.

However, narrowly fell short of the qualifying mark for the Budapest 2023 world championships by 16 seconds. Dudinska 50 is a World Athletics Tour Gold level event held annually. Ram Baboo clocked a timing of 2:29:56 to finish fifth and broke the previous record of 2:31:36 set by him to win the national championships last month.

Jose Luis Doctor Morales won the race by setting the Mexican national record of 2:26:37 and was followed by Brazil's Caio Bonfim (2:27:30) and China's Chuej Li-Chung (2:29:00) on the podium. Canada's Evan Dunfee (2:29:15) ended up securing the fourth position. At India's National Games held in Gujarat last year, Ram Baboo also set the then-national record of 2:36:34 to win the title.

Ram Baboo has already breached the entry standard for Asian Games 2023 in men's 35km race walk. The World Athletics Championships 2023 will be held in the Hungarian capital of Budapest from August 19 to 27. Indian race walkers Akshdeep Singh and Priyanka Goswami made the cut for the world championships in the men's and women's 20km events, respectively, earlier this year.

In the women's 35km race walk event, Kimberly Garcia of Peru won the race with a new world record of 2:37:44. Hong Liu of China claimed silver in 2:40:06 and Magaly Bonilla of Ecuador won bronze in 2:46:32. Sandeep Kumar of India came 12th in the men's 20km race walk. Eider Arevalo of Colombia (1:19:23) won the event ahead of Swede Perseus Karlstrom (1:19:44) and Mexico's Noel Chama (1:20:46).

India's Sanjay Kumar also competed in the 20km race walk but did not finish (DNF) the race.