Irfan finishes creditable 10th in 20km walk

India's K T Irfan finished a creditable 10th in the men's 20km walk, setting a new national record in the process, at the London Olympics, on Saturday.

He clocked 1:20.21s in a field of 56 walkers, bettering the old national record of 1:20.35s, which stood in the name of Gurmeet Singh.

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Gurmeet finished 33rd with a timing of 1:23.34s while the third Indian in the fray, Baljinder Singh, was 43rd in 1:25.39s.

Irfan was placed 27th after the six-km mark but went ahead to fifth after eight kms. He could not maintain his place after that though he hung on to the leading pack for a while.

His performance was in improvement on his earlier personal best of 1:22.09s, which he recorded in the IAAF World Race Walking Cup in Russia, in May.

All the three Indians had qualified for the Olympics after achieving the 'A' qualification standard.

Ding Chen of China won the gold in an Olympic record timing of 1:18:46s while the silver and bronze went to Erick Barrondo (1:18.57) of Guatemala and Zhen Wang (1:19.25) of China.