Uttar Pradesh’s Ram Baboo and Punjab’s Manju clinched gold medals in the men’s and women’s 42km full marathon walk at the 13th Indian Open Race Walk Competition held at Sukhna Lake. Ram Baboo, aged 26, finished in 3:09:17.00 to secure the gold, narrowly beating his competitor Sandeep Kumar. Sandeep Kumar settled for the silver with a time of 3:11:18.00.
Ram Baboo expressed his excitement at starting the 2026 season positively and aims to perform well at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games. Manju, on the other hand, was thrilled to win against seasoned race walker Priyanka Goswami. Manju’s winning time of 3:33:24.00 was nearly four minutes faster than Priyanka’s, who finished second with a time of 3:37:25.00.
Both Ram Baboo and Manju are eyeing success at the upcoming Asian Games and had previously secured bronze in the 35km mixed race walk team event at the 2022 Asian Games. In other results, Nitin Gupta from the Army won the men’s 10km race walk, while Reshma Patel from Uttar Pradesh triumphed in the women’s 10km race walk.
