Last chance to make CWG grade

NEW DELHI: When India’s top distance runners line up on the starting line for the national marathon championship here on Sunday, achieving the qualifying mark for the April Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia will be uppermost on their minds.

The Idbi-federal Life Insurance marathon will be the last chance for men and women to qualify for the CWG, which starts on April 4. The qualifying time time of 2:12.50 for men and 2:30.14 for women will need the athletes to set their personal bests.

However, the cool mornings should help the runners post faster times. The marathon starts at 5 am, when the temperature is forecast to be around 15 Degrees Celsius. It is expected to remain under 20 Degrees Celsius even at 7.30 am, when the elite men would have finished and the top women would be completing their race.

Army’s T Gopi and Nitender Singh Rawat will be chasing qualification. At the Mumbai marathon in January, they jostled for the top spot in the Indian category but could not achieve CWG qualification. Gopi’s clocked 2:16.51 and Rawat was second, three seconds behind, after the Mumbai humidity took its toll on them.

Among women, focus will be on Monika Athare, who clocked personal best (2:39.08) in Delhi last year. National coach Surender Singh is not predicting a target time. “The race is challenging and anything can happen,” he said.

The personal best of Rawat is 2:15.18, which he clocked in 2016 at Mumbai. In the 2016 Rio Olympics, he suffered a hamstring injury and returned to competition only in the later stages of 2017.