By IANS
New Delhi : Maharashtra’s Satya Prakash defended his Mawana Sugars Indian Open Marathon title Sunday, but failed to secure a berth for next year’s Beijing Olympics.
He finished the 42 kilometers race with a timing of 2:17:53 and pocketed Rs.200,000 prize money. However, there were some disappointments for the runner as he was a little over two minutes behind the Olympic qualification mark.
The ‘A’ standard time to qualify for Olympics was 2:15 and till date India’s top marathon runners could only come close to ‘B’ standard qualification time of 2:18.
“I am a little disappointed as I could not book my Olympic berth here, but I am happy that I could better my Nairobi timing. Today’s weather was conducive for the run, it also helped me to improve my timing,” Prakash told the media after winning the race.
Uttar Pradesh’s Anand Kumar came in second, clocking 2:19:20 and made himself richer by Rs.50,000, while H.A. Chinnappa of Tamil Nadu secured the third position (2:22:12) and earned Rs.25,000.
In the women’s full marathon, Rina Das of West Bengal secured the first position. Indresh Dhiraj of Uttar Pradesh and local girl Bhagwati finished second and third. The three women earned as much in prize money as their male counterparts had won.
Meanwhile, in the half marathon (21 km race)it was a tough fight between the top three, as there was only one-second difference between the winner, runner-up and third placeholder. Rashpal Singh of Maharshtra came out in flying colours with a timing of 1:06:19 and Delhi’s Sitaram (1:06:20) was the runner-up, while and Maharashtra lad R.B. Suba (1:06:21) finished on the third position.
Delhi was a clear ruler in the women’s category of the 21 km race as Kamlesh Bhagel, Anuja and Jyoti Bisht secured the first, second and third place respectively.
A total of 2,200 athletes participated in the races.