Nitendra Singh Rawat finishes twelfth

Uganda’s Victor Kiplangat took gold in the men’s marathon at the 2022 Commonwealth Games (CWG) being held at Birmingham, UK.

The first Ugandan to win the CWG marathon, he covered the distance in two hours, 10 minutes and 55 seconds, a report on world-track.org said. Silver went to Alphonce Felix Simbu (2:12:29) of Tanzania and the bronze to Kenya’s Michael Mugo Githae (2:13:16).

India’s Nitendra Singh Rawat finished in twelfth position. He covered the distance in 2:19:22.

Despite Kenya participating, there was no Eliud Kipchoge (he holds the world record – 2:01:39) or anyone in that league, at Birmingham. Defending CWG champion, Michael Shelley of Australia (PB – 2:11:15) was also absent given he retired in 2019. He was CWG champion in 2014 (Glasgow) and 2018 (Gold Coast). It was therefore a modestly sized field – 19 runners – on Saturday (July 30) with equally modest personal bests. But it was a competitive field with athletes having PBs not significantly spaced from each other, promising thus a good contest.

Within minutes of the race starting, Liam Adams of Australia shot off into the lead with a group of about half a dozen in pursuit. Coming into the race, Adams had a PB from March 2020, of 2:10:48 according to data available on the website of World Athletics. As the first half hour went by, the chasing group split into two with two Tanzanian runners including Simbu (PB – 2:06:20), ahead of the remaining three, which included Kiplangat (PB – 2:05:09) and Kenya’s Jonathan Kipleting Korir (PB – 2:04:32).

The 15K mark went by with Adams still in the lead; he covered it in 46:03, which if sustained, pointed to a potential sub-2:10 finish. According to Wikipedia, the CWG record in the men’s marathon was set in 1974 at Christchurch, New Zealand, by Ian Thompson of England; he had a timing of 2:09:12, which was also a PB.  It makes the unbroken CWG record four years older than the unbroken Indian national record in the men’s marathon set by Shivnath Singh in 1978; he covered the distance in 2:12:00.

Past the 15K-mark at Birmingham, Nitendra Singh Rawat was in fifteenth place. As per updates on the website of Sportstar, he moved up to twelfth spot after 30 kilometres in the race. Liam Adams, race leader in the initial phase, finished a creditable fourth with timing of 2:13:23. Korir wrapped up the top five, covering the distance in 2:14:06, world-track.org said. According to the website, past 30 kilometres, Kiplangat and Simbu were evenly matched but the Ugandan runner managed to increase his pace and open up a lead. It was a lead that was sufficiently big for him to correct a wrong path he took late in the race without compromising his position in the final results.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)