India's Gurpreet Singh fails to finish gruelling 50km race walk at Tokyo Olympics
The Indian race walker was forced to withdraw after suffering from cramps around the 35km mark amid hot and humid conditions.
Gurpreet Singh, India's lone representative in the 50km race walk at the Tokyo Olympics, was forced to drop out around the 35km mark due to cramps.
Amid draining conditions at the Sapporo Odori Park in Hokkaido, where the temperature slowly soared to around 30 degrees centigrade with the humidity around 80, the the 37-year-old Indian army man gradually lost ground.
At the 8km mark, Gurpreet Singh was 37th, just 0.37 seconds behind the race leader but dropped down to 44th around the 10km milestone.
Gurpreet Singh was 48th with a timing of 2:01:54 at the 25km halfway mark. But 10kms later, the conditions took a toll on the Indian and he had to drop out after suffering from cramps. He completed 35km in 2:55:19 before withdrawing.
Poland's Dawid Tomala led the majority of the race and completed the course in 3:50:08 to win gold. Germany's Jonathan Hilbert bagged silver with 3:50:44 while Canada's Evan Dunfee claimed the bronze medal with a 3:50:59 timing.
Due to the challenging conditions, the field at Tokyo was considerably slower than the Rio 2016 50km race walk event. Only 47 of the 59 starters finished the race, which included disqualifications.
Slovakia's Matej Toth, who finished 14th at Tokyo, had won gold at Rio with a timing of 3:40:58.
The Olympic record in the event is 3:36:53 while the world record stands at 3:32:33.
Gurpreet Singh, who qualified for the Tokyo Olympics based on his world ranking, clocked his personal best of 3:59:42 whilst winning gold at the national championships at Ranchi in February this year.