Amar Singh Devanda sets new national record

Four Indian men in top ten

Indian ultrarunners stole the limelight at the Canberra (Australia) IAU 24-hour Asia & Oceania Championship held over April 6 and 7, 2024.

The India’s men’s team put up a sterling performance with a combined mileage of 758.248 kilometres for the three leading Indian runners at the event.

This is the second consecutive team gold for India in IAU 24 Hour Asia & Oceania Championship. The Indian men’s team had won the gold and swept the individual men’s podium positions at the 2022 Championships held in Bengaluru.

Amar Singh Devanda, already a national record holder for the 24-hour category, bettered his performance substantially in Canberra. During the allotted 24-hour period, Amar ran a distance of 272.537, breaking his own national record of 257.62 km set at the IAU 24-hour Asia & Oceania Championship held at Bengaluru in July 2022. He had also won an individual gold medal at that event.

In the men’s team performance, Australia earned the silver with a combined mileage of 719.560 km and New Zealand bronze with a mileage of 636.679 km.

In the individual race for men, finishing behind Amar was Phil Gore of Australia with a mileage of 265.653 km. In third position was India’s Ullas Narayana with a mileage of 245.574 km.

In the women’s team category, home team Australia outshone other teams to win the gold medal with a combined mileage of 666.580 km for its top three athletes. New Zealand women finished second with a mileage of 568.401 km and Chinese Taipei took third position with a mileage of 551.686 km.

In the women’s individual performance, it was an Australian sweep. Australia’s Cassie Cohen won honours with her mileage of 227.803 km. She was followed by Maree Connor (221.347 km) and Jennifer White (217.430 km).

Runners were required to run on a 400-metre synthetic track inside AIS stadium, Canberra.

According to Amar, weather did pose some worries initially. “ Our race started in rain and we had to wear raincoats for the initial period. We were tense about the rain situation. But rains eased after about four hours,” Amar told this blog.

Amar ran continuously for 17 hours without taking a break. “ This time the race went off quite well. I did not face any major issues. Nutrition and hydration went off well, though I did feel quite sleepy after 18 hours of running,” he said.

This time around he had trained differently, stepping up mileage considerably. In the last three months ahead of the race, his training mileage topped 2,700 km. “ I did a lot of long night runs and also 12 hour runs. This time, I did time-based training instead of mileage based,” Amar said.

Following the IAU 24 Hour World Championships held at Taipei in December 2023, the team met to discuss some of the weak areas in running this format of ultrarunning, according to Santhosh Padmanabhan, Indian team manager.

“ As a team manager I got involved with their training closely and observed where they needed to change and what they needed to do differently. We worked on longer runs for more mileage and also night runs to deal with the fatigue,” he said.

The training approach was scientific.

“ As we progress, more runners will understand that training for an ultrarunning event is not the same as training for marathon distances,” Santhosh said.

For Cassie Cohen, the Australian ultrarunner who won the women’s race at Canberra, the race went off better than her expectations.

“ I was hoping to make the podium, but to come first was a dream come true,” she said in response to this blog’s queries.

“ My personal best coming into the race was 214 km. I was hoping to run somewhere between 225 and 230 km. Very happy to get to 227.8 km,” she said.

Her training helped her, she said. “I was doing pretty high volume, nine consecutive weeks of runs in excess of 100 km. I was also running to work and doing more strength workout including Pilates and gym work which seem to have helped,” she said.

Cassie, a resident of Canberra, had the home advantage. Also, ahead of the December 2023 World Championships held in Taiwan, she lived in Tonga. “ Tonga is much hotter and more humid. Also, training was not allowed on Sunday (as per Tongan law exercises are not allowed on Sunday). At the Bengaluru IAU meet, Cassie had finished with a silver medal covering a distance of 214.990 km during the stipulated 24 hours.

Four Indian male runners were in the top ten. Saurav Ranjan (240.137 km) finished fourth, Badal Teotia (220.80 km) finished ninth and Velu P (211.611 km) finished in 11th position.

Shashi Mehta had the highest mileage among the Indian women runners. She covered a distance of 190.772 km, finishing in eighth position. Meenal Kotak finished in 13th position and Preeti Lala in 14th position, both doing a mileage of 168.291 km.

Leading six male runners

Amar Singh Devanda (IND) – 272.537 km

Phil Gore (AUS) – 265.653 km

Ullas Narayana (IND) – 245.574 km

Saurav Ranjan (IND) – 240.137 km

Luke Thompson (AUS) – 231.753 km

John Bayne (NZL) – 229.447 km

Leading six women runners

Cassie Cohen (AUS) – 227.803 km

Maree Connor (AUS) – 221.347 km

Jennifer White (AUS) – 217.430 km

Shannon Leigh-Litt (NZL) – 213.609 km

Carol Robertson (NZL) – 209.642 km

Allicia Heron (AUS) – 203.531 km 

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