Camille Herron (This photo was downloaded from the Facebook page of the US National 24-Hour Running Team and is being used here for representation purpose. No copyright infringement intended)

Ultramarathon runner from the U.S., Camille Herron, has set a new world best of 270.116 kilometers in the women’s category at the 2019 IAU 24-hour World Championships that took place over October 26-27 at Albi in France.

She broke her own record of 262.193 km at the event.

According to the race report of IAU, Herron was the leader from the first lap and did not lose her position for the entire race.

At half way mark, she came close to the leading runner in the men’s race race, Aleksandr Sorokin of Lithuania.

Sorokin won the gold in the men’s race covering a distance of 278.973 km. It was a Lithuanian record.

During the first eight hours of the event, Erik Clavery from France was leading followed by Sorokin and Ivan Penalva Lopez from Spain. Thereafter, Sorokin took over the lead and sustained it till the end, to emerge winner.

In the women’s race, Herron was followed by Nele Alder-Baerens of Germany who took silver with a distance of 254.288 km. Patrycja Bereznowska of Poland took the bronze covering a distance of 247.724 km.

In the men’s race, Tamas Bodis of Hungary placed second to take the silver medal. He covered a distance of 276.222 km. Olivier Leblond of US won bronze with a distance of 275.485 km covered.

Among Indian runners in the men’s race, Ullas Narayana was at 40th position covering a distance of 229.717 km. Sunil Sharma placed 63rd covering a distance of 213.744 km. Pranaya Mohanty finished at 67th position with a distance of 211.956 km and Kanan at 68th with 211.157 km. Binay Kumar Sah finished at 178th position with a distance of 123.856 km covered.

Among Indian women, Apoorva Chaudhary finished 47th covering a distance of 202.212 km. Priyanka Bhatt finished 59th with a distance of 192.845 km. Hemlata finished 85th with a distance of 173.178 km and Shyamala Satyanarayana 106th with 154.577 km.

The Indian team for the IAU 24-Hour World Championships (This photo was downloaded from website of Athletics Federation of India and is being used here for representation purpose)

In the team championship, US took gold in both women’s and men’s categories.

In the women’s category, the US team covered a distance of 746.132 km to secure gold. Poland took silver with a distance of 721.124 km. Bronze went to Germany with a distance of 696.846 km.

In the men’s category, the US team covered a total distance of 799.754 km to win gold. Silver went to Hungary with 782.241 km covered while France took bronze for a distance of 779.076.

At the time of writing, the IAU website said that the above results are provisional.

According to IAU, the 2019 edition was the biggest championship so far with 45 member federations participating in the event.

(The author, Latha Venkatraman, is an independent journalist based in Mumbai.)