Rio 2016: India’s Manish Singh finishes 13th in men’s 20km race walk

Rio de Janeiro (Brazil): India’s Manish Singh, who was competing for an elusive medal for India at the Rio Olympics, made a respective 13th-place finish in the men’s 20 km race walk ahead of the Olympic record holder, Ding Chen here in Pontal on Saturday .

Manish Singh was setting the pace in the early stages, but he started falling behind at around 14-km mark to complete the race with a time of 1:21:21.

Manish finished two minutes and seven seconds behind the gold medal, which gone to China’s Wang Zhen.

CAI Zelin, the other athlete from China, won the silver with a timing of 1:19:26 while Australia’s Dane Bird-Smith bagged the bronze in a tightly contested race.

Meanwhile, it would be a race to forget for two of the three Indian walkers who were disqualified in the early stages of the race.

Gurmeet Singh was the first to be disqualified when he had not even reached the 6-kilometre mark. He was given three warnings, two for loss of contact and a third for a bent knee leading to the disqualification.

Ganapathi Krishnan, on the other hand, gave India another blow when he was disqualified before the 10-kilometre mark. The 27-year-old received all the three warnings for loss of contact. (ANI)