Gulveer wins 10,000 gold, walker Servin bags bronze

Servin Sebastian was unfortunate to miss out on a Paris Olympics berth.

- Avishek Roy

NEW DELHI: The results of the race walking meet in Chandigarh where he breached the Paris qualification mark were not considered by World Athletics due to a technical glitch of the organisers. There were a couple of meets left before Paris but Servin could not repeat his performance. A crestfallen Servin decided to take a break from race walking and not compete this season. It was then that Army coach Basanta Bahadur Rana stepped in and motivated him to look ahead and get over the setback.

The Tamil Nadu race walker has not only started afresh but is performing with renewed vigour. On Tuesday, Servin took bronze at the Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi, South Korea—his first big international medal with a personal best timing of 1:21:14. Paris Olympian and Asian Games silver medallist Wang Zhaozhao of China (1:20:37) won gold, seeing off a tough fight from Japan's Kento Yoshikawa (1:20:46).