The Hindu : Sport : Ram Singh, Rina Das emerge winners

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 21, 2007
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Sport

Sport

Ram Singh, Rina Das emerge winners

Special Correspondent

Pre-race men's favourite Kangogo pushed to second spot

— Photo: K. Murali Kumar

THE VICTOR: Ram Singh celebrates his triumph in the Bangalore midnight full marathon.

BANGALORE: Ram Singh of Artillery Centre, Hyderabad, and Rina Das of Eastern Railway became the first men and women's midnight marathon champions of the world.

The 26-year-old Ram Singh ran a virtual start to finish race to peg back the challenge from five foreigners in the Crossover-conducted event at Whitefield, near here. The midnight marathon, the first of its kind, was flagged off 10 minutes past the midnight hour.

Incidentally, Ram Singh is the third Indian to win the Bangalore International marathon in three years that the event has been conducted by Crossover. K. Ramu and H.A. Chinnappa were the winners in the last two years respectively.

Ram Singh, a native of Varanasi, ran the circuitous 5.4km route for the 42.195km event in 2:30:38.0 seconds to claim the gold and the winners purse of Rs. 50,000 as he pushed the pre-race favourite Mathew Kangogo of Kenya to the second spot.

The Kenyan, with a previous best of 2:29:30.0, wanted to be part of the history, but could only manage the second place.

"I'm very happy with my second place... the race was good and the route too, but after the 10km-mark the Indian just took off and I lost him," the Kenyan said.

Unhappy with timing

Rina, a junior clerk in Eastern Railway, finished ahead of the field, but was unhappy with her timing. "I've been running at the National-level since 1986... but this being the first time at this hour (midnight), I'm happy to finish with the gold and Rs. 50,000," she said.

Errappa D. Akki of Madras Regimental Centre (MRC) and Railways' Pampa Chanda bagged the top place in the men's and women's half-marathon respectively, which attracted more than 1,000 runners in all, for the winner's purse of Rs. 25,000 each.

Asked about the AFI strictures against National runners participating in this event, which has not received the National federation's recognition, Erappa said: "I am on annual leave and I am not aware of the ban. If there is something of that sort, the Federation should have intimated the Centre, which in turn would have cautioned me. Since nothing of that sort has happened, I participated."

The results: Men: Full-marathon: 1. Ram Singh (Army) 2:30.38.0s, 2. Mathew Kongogo (Ken) 2:33:39.0, 3.Tatessee Girma (Eth) 2:51:30.0.

Half-marathon: 1. Erappa D. Akki (MRC) 1:25.00, 2. A. Alfred, 3. I.A. Shivananda (Rly).

Women: Full-marathon: 1. Rina Das (Rly) 3:32.44, 2. Satyabhama (Ind), timing not recorded as she lost timing chip after first lap, 3. Mageshwari (Ind), timing not recorded as she registered at the last minute and didn't take the timing chip device.

Half-marathon: 1. Pampa Chanda (Rly) 1:34.00, 2. Farah Mahmood, 3. Nischal Pai.

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