"Indian athletes got good exposure" - National coach Surendra Singh impressed with Kartik Kumar and Gulveer Singh's Asian Games performance

Training with elite USA distance runners in the high altitude of Colorado Springs for more than 10 weeks seemingly reaped rewards for Kartik Kumar and Gulveer Singh at Asian Games 2023.

On Saturday, in Hangzhou, both Kartik and Gulveer battled with two Japanese and Bahraini runners to eventually win silver and bronze medals in the 10,000m race.

On their way to the podium finish, both Kartik and Gulveer clocked personal bests of 28:15.38 and 28:17.21, respectively.

Surendra Singh, national distance coach, said he told his trainees to stay with the leading group as long as possible.

“The tactics worked for the Indian athletes. As the race boiled down to sprint finish in the last 250m of the 25-lap race, both Kumar and Singh had enough speed in their legs to sprint home in the last 200m of the 10,000m,” the national coach told Sportskeeda over the phone from Hangzhou.

With two medals on Saturday, the tally in athletics for India has swelled to three. On Friday, shot putter Kiran Baliyan had won a bronze for the country.

The core group of Indian middle and long-distance runners - including Ajay Kumar Saroj, Kartik Kumar, and Gulveer Singh - have been training in the high altitude of Colorado Springs since July.

“The Indian athletes got good exposure that mainly added to their confidence ahead of the Asian Games,” the national coach said.

The distance runners directly reached China from Colorado Springs and also had a short five-day camp in Shanghai to acclimatize to the local weather conditions.

The two Indian distance runners on Saturday ended a nearly 25-year-long wait to win medals in the 10,000m track race.

Way back at the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games in Thailand, India’s Gulab Chand won bronze in the men’s 10,000m. At the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games, Govindan Lakshmanan was in contention for a medal but inadvertently stepped inside the track in the closing stages of the 10,000m event. He was later disqualified.

Other Indian athletes in action at Asian Games 2023 on September 30

The Indian quarter-milers weren’t successful in winning medals on Saturday. Aishwarya Mishra clocked 53.50 seconds to finish fourth, while Muhammed Ajmal finished fifth in the men’s 400m. He clocked 45.97 seconds.

Earlier, in the morning session, Murali Sreeshankar and Jeswin Aldrin qualified for the medal round in the long jump. India’s middle-distance runners - Ajay Kumar Saroj and Jinson Johnson, the defending champion - advanced to the final of the 1500m.

National record holder and 100m hurdles specialist Jyothi Yarraji and Nithya Ramraj also entered the medal round in the women’s 100m hurdles.

India’s Nandini Agasara was in the fourth position with 3,328 points in the heptathlon on the first day, while defending champion Swapna Barman was sixth with 3,312 points.