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India’s Paramjeet Singh and Vikash Singh were successful in securing berths in the men’s 20km race walking event for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games at the Asian Race Walking Championships in Nomi, Japan, on Sunday, March 19.
According to the Athletics Federation of India (AFI), Paramjeet and Vikash's performances of 1:20:08 and 1:20:05, respectively, over the distance of 20km in the open category were better than the qualification standards of the 2023 World Athletics Championships.
“Competing at the Asian Race Walking Championships was a good opportunity to improve my personal best and come within the qualification mark of the 2014 Olympic Games as well as the 2023 World Athletics Championships,” Paramjeet told Sportskeeda over the phone from Japan.
Paramjeet's previous best was 1:21:29, clocked in February in Ranchi. Vikash also bettered his personal best of 1:21:08 in Japan on Sunday. While Paramjeet and Vikash improved their personal best, Akshdeep Singh won the gold medal in the men’s 20km race walk event in Japan.
Medals are not awarded in the open category, but each nation is allowed to field one athlete in the medal category. Priyanka Goswami won bronze in the women’s 20km event.
Akshdeep and Priyanka have also achieved qualification time for the World Athletics Championships, scheduled to be held in Budapest later this year and the 2024 Olympic Games. With Paramjeet and Vikash qualifying on Sunday, a total of four Indian race walkers have bagged berths for the 2024 Olympics as well as the World Championships.
Results
Men: Medal category: 1 Akshdeep Singh (India) 1:20:57, 2 Choe Byeongkwang (South Korea) 1:21:20, 3 Wen Yongjie (China) 1:22:44.
Open category: 1 Qian Haifeng (China) 1:19:09, 2 Vikash Singh (India) 1:20:05, 3 Paramjeet Singh (India) 1:20:08, 5 Suraj Panwar (India) 1:22:31, 6 Hardeep Singh (India) 1:25:38.
Women: Medal category: 1 Lan Gao (China) 1:29:25, 2 Ayane Yanai (Japan)1:30:58, 3 Priyanka Goswami (India) 1:32:27.
