Uttar Pradesh athlete Ram Baboo clocked 2 hours 36 minutes and 34 seconds to set a new national record for 35km race walk on the concluding day of athletics competitions at the National Games here on Tuesday.
In a race introduced last year and made its National Games debut this time, 23-year-old Ram Baboo’s mark helped him beat Haryana’s Juned Khan, who clocked 2:40:51.00 here and held the national record of 2:40:16.00 made at the National Race Walking championships in Ranchi this year, comfortably.
Andhra Pradesh’s Jyothi Yarraji, the 100m women’s champion, got a rare double of gold medals by winning the 100m hurdles. She became the first Indian female to clock a sub-13 seconds time (12.79 seconds) in the hurdles. But her performance could not be considered for record purposes due to the wind assistance beyond the permissible limit of 2m/s.
