Priyanka Goswami clinches silver in women’s 10,000m race walk
August 7, 2022
Priyanka Goswami on Saturday scripted history as she became the first Indian woman to win a medal in race walk with a silver in 10,000m event at the Commonwealth Games here.
Goswami clocked a personal best time of 43:38.83s to finish second behind Jemima Montag (42:34.30) of Australia. Emily Wamusyi Ngii (43:50.86) of Kenya took the bronze.
The other Indian in the fray, Bhawna Jat finished eighth and last with a personal best time of 47:14.13.
Harminder Singh was the first Indian to win a medal in race walk — a bronze — in the 20km event in 2010 CWG in Delhi.
“This is the first Commonwealth Games medal in walking for an Indian woman so I’m really pleased to have created a piece of history,” Goswami said after the event.
“I wasn’t thinking about the Australian (gold medallist Jemima Montag), when you look at what we did at the Olympics in Tokyo and the world championships last month she is a better walker than me. I just concentrated on my own race and I hope to close the gap on her (in the future) step by step.”
Asked about the mascots and fingernails she was having, Goswami said, “I have a Lord Krishna and I take him with me to every competition and he brought me luck today.
“I have also painted my nails with the flags of the country where I compete so I have England for the Commonwealth Games, Japan for the Olympic Games, Spain because I raced there and some other flags as well.” Goswami is the national record holder in women’s 20km race walk event with a time of 1:28:4 but she was competing in 10,000m as her pet event is not there in the Birmingham CWG.
In the last edition in Gold Coast, both the men and women competed in 20km race walk event. But in Birmingham, the organisers decided to have competitions over 10km, and that too on track.
