Amit walks away with silver

Vinayak Padmadeo

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 21

Amit Khatri was super excited to show his silver medal to the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) officials, those who did not travel to Nairobi, Kenya, for the World Athletics U20 Championships.

The 18-year-old, who hails from Ismaila village in Rohtak, Haryana, was understandably delighted as this was his first-ever international meet. Amit finished a little over six seconds behind Kenya’s Heristone Wanyonyi to finish in the silver medal position in the 10,000 metres race walk event. Spain’s Paul McGrath bagged the bronze medal.

Amit had led the race for a lengthy period. He regretted the lapse in judgement before the final lap, when he went for a water bottle and ended up ceding the lead to Wanyonyi. However, Amit knows the medal was realised on the back of two countrywide lockdowns which brought everything to a standstill.

The son of BSF havildar Suresh Kumar, Amit trained with his coach Chandan Singh, a Naib Subedar in the Indian Army, in Nainital for over two months from October in 2020 for high altitude training. He then trained in a makeshift 500-metre track on the Kharkhoda-Jhajjar highway before training on another makeshift track of one kilometre near his family’s farm in Ismaila.

“I had to stop running on the highway after it opened to traffic so I had to make another makeshift track near our farms,” Amit told The Tribune from Nairobi.

“Before that I trained with Chandan sir in Nainital for over two months. I couldn’t train with him during the second lockdown so my training programme and other analysis were done over video calls,” Amit added.

Chandan, a former international athlete, said: “We had to keep training as we knew any moment we would be asked to take part in a tournament. So we kept at it in whichever way we could to stay fit and ready.”

‘A big medal’

Talking about his race, Amit said a combination of things put him off his target of winning a gold medal. Struggling to adapt to the high altitude in Nairobi and inexperience were two of the issues that kept him away from the top of the podium.

“My strategy was simple. I wanted to stay near the leading pack and then make my move,” Amit explained. “It worked for the race except for the last 400 metres or so where I tried to get a water bottle. After conceding the lead I held back thinking I may get a warning card if I try hard to catch up. I wanted to win the gold medal but it is still a big medal for me,” he added.

20km next target

Chandan has already earmarked the next target for Amit, who holds the national records in U-16, U-18 and U-20. Amit’s next big target is to switch his attention to the 20km race walk event.

“We have already talked about this. We are talking about the 2024 Paris Olympics and he has all the attributes to make the cut for the 20km race walk event. We will start training soon,” Chandan said.