India’s Abhishek Pal battles Bangkok weather to win 10,000m bronze on Day 1 of Asian Athletics Championships

India’s 25 years old distance runner battled Bangkok weather and competed to win a bronze in the men’s 10,000m track race on the opening day 25th Asian Athletics Championships in Thailand.

Pal’s bronze medal-winning time of 29:33.26 seconds was far slower than his season best of 29:07.10 seconds clocked earlier this year during a domestic meeting.

“The weather was okay at the start of the 25-lap race, but got more humid as the race progressed,” Pal said over the phone from Bangkok.

Japan’s Ren Tazawa took the pole position and the athletes string out after two laps. Tazawa wasn’t challenged by his rivals and he eventually won gold with a time of 29:18.44 seconds. Kazakhstan’s Shadrack Kimutai Koech took home silver with a time of 29:31.63 seconds.

While Pal and compatriot Gulveer Singh stayed behind the leading runners for almost the entire race. Pal, however, pushed hard in the last lap and overtook tiring Japanese runner Yuto Imae, who was fourth, to cross the finish line in third place.

“I saw Imae slowing down in the last two laps. I gradually tracked him down and pushed hard in the last 400m to win bronze,” Pal said in the post race interaction.

The two Japanese in the race had sub-28 minutes to their credit. But local weather conditions took its toll on the competitors. Pal was excited to have won bronze as he had finished seventh in the 10,000m at the 2019 Doha edition of the Asian Athletics Championships in Qatar.

“The bronze in the 10,000m has added to my confidence. I should do better in the 5,000m race,” Pal added.

While experienced javelin thrower Annu Rani missed the podium, she finished fourth with a throw of 59.10m. Middle-distance runner Lili Das too missed the podium in the women’s 1500m, clocking 4:27 to finish seventh.

Indian quarter-milers gave a good account of themselves in the preliminary rounds of the 400m. Aishwarya Misha clocked 53.58 seconds to win her heat and advanced to the final scheduled for Thursday.

Rajesh Ramesh (45.91 secs) and Muhammad Ajmal (45.75 secs) were impressive in the men’s 400m semis on Wednesday. Both have qualified for the final. In the decathlon, Tejaswin Shankar was leading the field on Day 1 with 4124 points. He was marginally ahead of Thailand's Suttisak Singkhon who has 4,024 points in his kitty.