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Bengaluru, Apr 27 (PTI) It was a double delight for Ugandan runners as Sarah Chelangat and Joshua Cheptegei took home the top prize in their respective categories in the TCS World 10K, a World Athletics Gold Label Road Race, held here Sunday.
Abhishek Pal and Sanjivani Jadhav showed exceptional courage to finish on top among Indians just a few days after running with top-class athletes during the Federation Cup under the scorching sun in Kochi, a qualifying competition for the upcoming Asian Championship in Korea.
As far as Chelangat and Cheptegei are concerned, they are the first athletes from their country to take home the TCS World 10K titles, along with a prize of USD 26,000 each.
When the women took the starting line-up at 5:30 am, eight of the best women with personal best timings faster than the event records, set their foot on the Bengaluru roads.
However, Sarah had a different strategy in mind as she broke away from the rest of the runners after the first two kilometres and maintained the lead thereafter.
Sarah increased her pace once she parted from the rest of the field and passed through the halfway mark at 15:23. At that stage, it was 20 seconds faster than Cintia and Ethiopians Guteni Shanko and Asmarech Anley.
The gap started widening thereafter, and Sarah did not look back to see where her rivals were at any point in the race.
With no one to push her, Sarah had to run her race and missed out on the event record by well over 30 seconds. She touched the tape at 31:07. Cintia had to fight it out with Guteni for the runners-up position, as less than two seconds separated them at the finish.
It was a big break for Sarah, a double gold medallist in the 2018 Youth Olympic Games and a 2024 Paris Olympic finalist in 10,000m. With age on her side (23), the Ugandan runner is expected to achieve more.
"When we were running, I felt the pace was a bit slow. I thought, why don't I push and try to finish in the first position. I came in feeling confident and believing I must win the race," Sarah said after her victory.
Joshua battled it out for men's crown
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Unlike the women, the men's runners engaged in a keen battle. In the first phase of the race, a group of a dozen runners ran together. Midway, the lead bunch reduced to six as Tanzania's Gabriel Geay led the runners at 14:01.
With their mark at 5K seeming slower, they did not show any trend to break the event record. The men had only the ambition of winning left in their minds. With that mindset, they exchanged the lead among themselves in the next few kilometres.
Five men, including Joshua, crossed the 8K mark together in 22:35 with Kenya's Vincent Nyamongo lagging six seconds behind.
With the finish fast approaching, Joshua increased his tempo, as did Eritrean teenager Saymon Tesfagiorgis Amanuel.
The 17-year-old Saymon has already clocked the Eritrean best in 10K (27:10) while finishing second at Lille just last month.
Realising the threat from the youth, Joshua went all out in the waning stages to finish first in 27:53. Saymon took the second spot two seconds later. At the same time, Kenyan Vincent Lagat sprinted to third position in 28:02, and Geay finished fourth at 28:03.
"Coming in as the favourite also puts a lot of pressure, especially when you have a lot of experience. If you look at my personal best, I am the fastest on the track, but that was a long time ago.
"When you look at guys like Vincent, Gabriel and young boys like Saymon, it's a tough competition. Besides running for the time you have to run for the position," Joshua said after the race.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
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