Stuck in a loop: Slow progress of the Indian marathon runner

No one has come close to bettering the late Shivnath Singh's national record that has stood since 1978

- Rutvick Mehta

Three decades into his triple jump world record of 18.29m from the 1995 World Championships, Jonathan Edwards had this to say to BBC this month about it remaining untouched: “I don’t think it’s a good sign for athletics as a sport that you have a record that stands for 30 years.”

Every word of that sentence could also well apply to the men’s marathon national record in India. Except, that mark goes much further back.

The late Shivnath Singh's marathon national record of 2:12:00 set in 1978 in Jalandhar still stands the test of time. As per Athletics Federation of India (AFI) data, it remains the longest standing national mark, with PT Usha’s 400m hurdles record of 1984 also equalled in 2023.

Two of the country’s prominent marathon races, in Mumbai and New Delhi, had Indian winners clock timings around the 2:17 and 2:15 mark. It’s pretty much where India’s male marathoners have been stuck over the last five years, after Gopi T came close to the national mark when he clocked 2:13:39 at the 2019 Seoul Marathon.