Amit Khatri won a silver in the world U-20 Athletics Championship. It was a men’s 10,000-meter race walk event. The meet was hosted in Nairobi the capital of Kenya on Saturday. He recorded 42 minute, 17.94 seconds to finish second. Khatri occupies the national record and is a world U-20 season leader.

Contents hide
1. Details
2. Wanyoni Breaks Ahead of Khatri in Last Laps
3. Khatri’s Training in High Altitude
4. Hard-Work Paid Off in Winning Silver
5. Neeraj Chopra congratulates Khatri

Details

Khatri, the seventeen-year-old young men led the race pretty fairly but happened to be in second place by winning silver. While Heristone Wanyoni belonging to the hosting country Kenya recorded 42:10.84 secured the first place and won gold. Heristone had the advantage of knowing the homeplace and its high-altitude situation. Knowing the altitude of Nairobi made him win the race in the last two laps.

Wanyoni Breaks Ahead of Khatri in Last Laps

Khatri was leading the race excellently till 9000m, but the things changed in last two laps when Wanyoni leaped across him. Wanyoni won gold with his personal finest time on the fourth day of Athletic meet. While Paul McGrath from Spain with a timing of 42:26.11 minutes won bronze.

Khatri’s Training in High Altitude

Amit Khatri a youngster from Rohtak, even after winning silver regrets that he couldn’t do his best record of 40:40.97 which he had tracked down and won gold in Federation cup junior National Championship. He had been trained in Nainital for high altitude race. But Nairobi altitude is different, which affected his game as he struggled for breath in that new altitude. It is up to 1800 from sea level in Nairobi.

Amit is the son of BSF constable Suresh Kumar. He had been trained by coach Chandan Singh. Coach Chandan Singh is a Naib Subedar in the Indian army.

Amit’s coach Naib subedar Chandan Singh said “we had to keep training as we knew any moment, we would be asking to take part in a tournament. So, we kept at it in whichever way we could to stay fit and ready”.

Hard-Work Paid Off in Winning Silver

The target was to win gold but the struggle to adapt in the higher altitude of Nairobi kept him from gold.  For Amit it is an excellent win as it was his first major international race walk.

Amit told on wining “it was my first international meet and competing at high altitude made it more difficult. But I made few mistakes at the water point, my mind got disturbed which cost me the gold but it was a great experience and going forward it will help me”. Further he said “the home advantage also helped Kenyan who trains at the same ground. I was worried about committing fouls”.

Neeraj Chopra congratulates Khatri

Gold medalist Neeraj Chopra congratulates Khatri in a tweet Said “congratulation Amit bhai for your wonderful performance”