New Delhi Marathon 2022: Last chance for Olympian Nitendra Rawat and Co. to make Asian Games, CWG cuts
The seventh edition of the New Delhi Marathon will be held on Sunday. It will start at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
The New Delhi Marathon 2022, scheduled to be held on Sunday, will give Indian marathon runners one last opportunity to breach the Athletics Federation of India’s qualifying standards for this year’s Commonwealth Games and Asian Games.
Breaching the AFI’s qualifying standards gives athletes a very favourable chance of making the Indian team for the two quadrennial events.
The qualifying standard time for the Commonwealth Games, which will be held in July-August in Birmingham, is 2:18:40 and 2:38:19 seconds for men and women, respectively. The marks for September’s Asian Games in Hangzhou, China are 2:18:48 and 2:39.28, respectively.
The New Delhi Marathon 2022 will have four separate categories – the full marathon, the half marathon, the 10k run and the 5k run – for both men and women.
The live events with limited entries will begin and end at the iconic Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in the national capital. Amateur runners can also participate in the virtual runs through the event’s virtual app and complete their run by April 2 to earn their certificates.
Among the elite men’s runners participating, the focus will be on Rio Olympian Nitendra Singh Rawat, Anish Thapa Magar, Belliappa AB and Arjun Pradhan.
Rawat, a former South Asian Games marathon champion, recently clocked 2:22:01 at the Boston Marathon in October to become the fastest Indian at the prestigious meet. He has a personal best of 2:15:18.
Pradhan and Belliappa are both in fine form and clocked their personal bests of 2:20:06 and 2:20:14, respectively, during the Dhaka Marathon earlier this year.
Magar, primarily a half-marathoner, has recently shifted to full marathon.
Among the women’s elite runners, last year’s silver medallist Jyoti Gawate, Prachi Godbole, Disket Dolma, Jigmet Dolma and Tsetan Dolkar will be the big draws at the event.
The New Delhi Marathon, recognised as a National Marathon Championship by the AFI, is into its seventh edition.
In the last edition in 2021, Srinu Bugatha (2:14:58) won the men’s elite full marathon race ahead of Nitendra Singh Rawat. The women’s crown went to Sudha Singh (2:43:41) who beat out Jyoti Gawate by 15 seconds.