Suresh Kumar and Preeja Sreedharan emerged winners among the Indian athletes taking part in the Delhi Half Marathon.
Preeja Sreedharan (1:19:03) successfully defended her title in the Elite Indian women category with a fair margin as Monika Athare (1:19:12) and Sudha Singh (1:19:21) rounded up the top three places.
In the men’s category, Suresh of ONGC won the elite men’s category with time of 1:04:38 while Nitender Singh Rawat (1:04:54) and Kheta Ram (1:04:56) finished not far behind.
Despite carrying a cold, 2010 Asian Games gold medalist Preeja was never particularly bothered as she had a fair lead going into the final stretch.
“In the morning I felt very cold, since I am coming from training at Trivandrum, where it was comparatively hot. But I am happy to defend my title and win the ADHM for the 2nd time in a row,” a cheerful 32-year-old said. She stated that she plans to focus on road events in the future. However she would be taking a two-year hiatus from the sport after the National Championships in January.
Athare had finished second in the Mumbai Half Marathon bettered her personal best despite not getting the best of preparations. “I participated in a 10,000m race for my department (lIC) 6 days back and the conditions weren’t the best. It was raining but I still competed so that didn’t leave me in the best of shape,” she said later.
like Athare, Suresh wasn’t 100% going into the race either. “I was practicing in Dehradun. I wasn’t fully ready but planned to stay in a group for as long as I can and then lead away with 5 or 6 km to go.
“We were together as a group till about 17 kms and I was a bit behind in that. Then I started to push and build a lead which increased the gap.”
Nintender who finished 16 seconds behind, had to moderate his speed after picking up an injury. “At the 20km mark, Suresh was in the lead and I stretched my side so my position became clear to me. If I pushed, I could have aggravated it so I stayed at a normal pace,” he stated.