India's race walk coach Tatyana Sibileva is at the Sports Authority of India, South Centre, in Bengaluru with the Russian invasion of Ukraine reportedly scuttling her chances of procuring a UK visa for the Commonwealth Games.
But her wards, Sandeep Kumar and Priyanka Goswami, brought laurels as they won a bronze and silver in the men's and women's 10,000m race walk finals. After Priyanka's silver on Saturday, Sandeep made it a Super Sunday, bagging the bronze by overcoming a challenge from England's Callum Wilkinson at the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham.
The 36-year-old Sandeep was in the lead for long periods at the 1000m, 4000m and 5000m splits but slipped to second and third through the second half of the race before settling for the bronze medal. He clocked a personal best time of 38:49.21s. Canada's Evan Dunfee (38:36.37s) and Australia's Declan Tingay (38:42.33s) took the top two spots on the podium.
Sandeep was the second Indian to win a Commonwealth Games medal in men's race walking, emulating his coach Harminder Singh who claimed a bronze in Delhi 2010. According to experts, the walkers' technical improvements made them a force to reckon with in Birmingham.
"When I took over the focus was on speed. But I brought in some technical adjustments which helped them," coach Tatyana told TOI. In women's 4x100m relay, the Indian quartet - Dutee Chand, Hima Das, Srabani Nanda, Jyoti Yarraji - finished fifth in 43.81s. Nigeria took the gold clocking an Area record time of 42.10 followed by England with a season's best effort of 42.41s.
