When Kartik Kumar bolted away from the rest of the pack at the start of the men’s 10,000 meter Asian Games race, his countryman Gulveer Singh was meant to be up with him and not back with the group behind him. At least, that was the plan devised by their coach.
According to Scott Simmons, the strategy for the pair was to run each 400m in 67 seconds and therefore complete the race in under 28 minutes (1675 seconds), which would have enabled the duo to break Surendra Singh’s national record of 28:02.89 (1682.89s) from 2008. While both Kartik and Gulveer ended up with a silver and a bronze, the key objective for them here at the Hangzhou Olympic Stadium was to go past the national record.
“I felt that Gulveer should have gone with him,” said Simmons. “He didn’t have the confidence today. Even though he should have had it because these two boys have been training like this for the last 3 months.”
