2012 Olympics: Irfan finishes 10th in 20km race walk

London: India`s K T Irfan finished a creditable 10th in the men`s 20km Race Walk competition with a new national record in the London Olympics on Saturday.

Irfan clocked 1::20:21 in the race participated by 56 walkers, bettering the old national record of 1::20.35 in the name of Gurmeet Singh. Gurmeet finished 33rd with a timing of 1::23:34 while the third Indian in the fray, Baljinder Singh was 43rd in 1::25:39. Irfan did not begin well as he was 27th after the 6-km mark but went ahead at fifth after the 8-km distance. He could not maintain his place after that though he hung on to the leading pack for a while. Irfan improved upon his earlier personal best of 1::22:09 which he recorded in the IAAF World Race Walking Cup in Russia in May. All the three Indians had qualified for the Olympics after achieving `A` qualification standard. Ding Chen of China won the gold in Olympic record timing of 1::18:46 while the silver and bronze went to Erick Barrondo (1::18:57) of Guatemala and Zhen Wang (1::19:25) of China. PTI