Rotterdam\/New Delhi, April 12(UNI)Indian Army\u2019s distance runner Sawan Barwal overcame challenging conditions in the closing stages of Rotterdam Marathon on Sunday to etch his name in the record books.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old, on his marathon debut clocked 2:11:58 to finish 20th in the world-class field on the streets of Rotterdam, Netherlands. His Sunday performance bettered the more than four-decades-old national record of 2:12:00 set by the late Shivnath Singh in 1978 in Jalandhar, Punjab.<\/p>\n
Sawan Barwal ran a steady pace throughout the gruelling marathon distance of 42.195 km. But windy conditions in the last 5 km of the race took their toll on the Indian runner.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty cold and windy. I made a mistake of pouring water on my head at the water station,\u201d the army runner said from Rotterdam. \u201cI was running at a comfortable pace until the 37 km mark. But the last 2 km were more challenging as I had to just plod to cross the finish line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sawan Barwal is the fastest of the four athletes who have bettered the Asian Games marathon qualification time of 2:15:04 this year. Kartik Karkera, Gopi T and Man Singh are the other three runners.<\/p>\n
Exhausted after his record-breaking efforts, the army runner fell down crossing the finish line. He was taken for medical assistance. \u201cI\u2019ve recovered and am feeling better,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Experienced marathon runner and Asian champion, Gopi T was the second Indian runner in the fray. Gopi finished 23rd with a time of 2:13:16.<\/p>\n
Gopi had come close to breaking the national record last year at the Valencia Marathon in December but the 37-year-old Army runner had clocked 2:12:23 to narrowly miss the record.<\/p>\n
At the Rotterdam Marathon on Sunday, Sawan Barwal from Mandi district, Himachal Pradesh ran at a steady pace. At the halfway mark, his time was 1:04:42. <\/p>\n
At the 30 km mark he was below the 2:10:00 marathon pace. \u201cI was mentally and physically prepared to clock 2:10:00. But tough conditions robbed me of further improving my national record,\u201d he revealed. <\/p>\n
At 40 km his time was 2:03:39. In the closing stages of the gruelling race he slowed down to cross the finish line at 2:11:58. \u201cIt was a good learning experience in Rotterdam,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n
UNI RKM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rotterdam\/New Delhi, April 12(UNI)Indian Army\u2019s distance runner Sawan Barwal overcame challenging conditions in the closing stages of Rotterdam…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1513,2240,2244,2242,2243,2241,1440,1918,1448,41],"class_list":{"0":"post-2227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rotterdam","8":"tag-at","9":"tag-barwal","10":"tag-breaks","11":"tag-challenging","12":"tag-conditions","13":"tag-conquers","14":"tag-marathon","15":"tag-national","16":"tag-record","17":"tag-rotterdam"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}