Indian Open race walk under scanner after AFI glitch
A technical flaw saw a shorter course for an event, and the result won’t be considered for Tokyo world championships qualification, athletes say
New Delhi: The results of the Indian Open Race Walking Competition are yet to be updated by the World Athletics (WA) for world championships qualification. The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) said there was a technical glitch in one race (women’s 35km) during the April 19 event in Chandigarh, but results of other races will be considered by WA.
Race walkers, however, say that when they reached out to WA, they were told the competition has not met the set “standards and criteria” and therefore the results are not considered for ranking points towards the Tokyo World Championships in September.
If the result is not added, the race walkers will have to compete in another event to boost qualification chances. In Tokyo, competitions will be held in the 20km and 35km events (men and women). Three results in the qualification period (Feb 25, 2024-Aug 24, 2025) are considered for world rankings. A maximum of three race walkers from one country can compete.
It has been learned that in the women’s 35km competition, there was an issue with the counting of laps in the course (road) and the race finished at 34km.
“There was an issue with only a 35km race walk. It was a human error on the part of a judge due to which the result of women’s 35km race walk has been scrapped. We have already taken action against the judge. The result of other races will be updated in the rankings,” AFI spokesperson Adille Sumariwalla told HT.
The competition is conducted by technical officials of AFI. Besides, there are three WA race-walking judges who monitor the races and report to the world body.
Interestingly, the result of India Open Race Walking Competition of 2024 also came under scrutiny due a similar technical error. WA had not recognised the timings of three race walkers who had qualified for Paris Olympics from that meet. One of them was Servin Sebastian.
Unfortunately, Servin is again at the receiving end for no fault of his. He won the 20km event clocking 1 hour, 21 minutes, 47 seconds. Servin is in good form this season and currently ranked just outside of the top 50 (Road to Tokyo) who will qualify for Tokyo. The Chandigarh result would have taken him into the top-50. Now, Servin will have to do well at the Asian Championships to qualify. The 35km men’s race walk was won by 2023 Asian Games bronze medallist Ram Baboo (2:32:54).
A coach said it was disappointing that race walkers will now have to compete in another event to have any chance of qualifying for Tokyo. “How can you repeatedly have technical errors in the most important competition of your domestic calendar? It is a lot of hard work and effort and now to not have the result is very discouraging. Not every athlete has the sponsor to go out and compete in events overseas to qualify,” the coach said.