Irfan finishes 26th in men`s 20km the World Race Walking Cup

New Delhi: National record holder Kolothum Thodi Irfan finished 26th in the men`s 20km event at the IAAF World Race Walking Cup at Taicang, China today.

Irfan clocked 1:21:09 and was the best-finisher among five Indians in the fray. This was his season`s best timing. Overall, the Indian walkers finished eighth in the team rankings out of a total of 17 teams in the race. Irfan, 24, had finished 10th in the 2012 London Olympics with a new rational record of 1:20:21. 2014 Asian Championships bronze medallist Gurmeet Singh clocked 1:21:20 to finish 27th, also with his season`s best timing. Devender Singh and (1:22:07) and K Ganapathi (1:22:41) produced their personal bests to finish 33rd and 41st respectively while former national record holder Basanta Bahadur Rana clocked 1:23:15 to finish at 48th position. The event was won by Ukrainian Ruslan Dmytrenko in 1:18:37 while Cai Zelin of China and Andrey Ruzavin of Russia were second and third in 1:18:52 and 1:18:59 respectively. Reigning world champion Aleksander Ivanov was disqualified while China`s London Olympics gold medallist Ding Chen finished 15th. Ukraine also won the team title in the event while China and Japan took the silver and bronze respectively. Yesterday, Sandeep Kumar and Khushbir Kaur set national records in men`s 50km and women`s 20km events respectively. Sandeep finished 23rd in his event, clocking 3:56:22s to better Basanta Bahadur Rana`s earlier national record timing of 3:56:48s set during the 2012 the London Olympics. Khushbir erased her own national record in the 20km event, clocking 1:31:40, to finish 35th.