Amit Khatri won a silver medal in the men’s 10,000m race walk event of the World U-20 Athletics Championship on Saturday. Khatri’s medal for the second medal in India’s tally at the event. The 17-year-old braved breathing difficulties to finish second with a time of 42 minute 17.94 seconds. The gold medal was won by Kenya’s Heristone Wanyoni, who clocked 42 minute 10.84 seconds. Paul McGrath won Spain the bronze medal with a timing of 42:26.11 minutes.

Khatri, the national record holder, was leading the pack at the 9000m mark, but lost the lead to the local athlete Wanyoni with just two laps left in the race. Wanyoni clocked his personal best to win the top spot on the podium.

Khatri’s frequent visits to the refreshment table to get water — especially the last one with just a lap and a half to go for the finish — could have cost him the gold.

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This is the first medal by an Indian in race walk at the U20 World Championships. Khatri also won India’s sixth medal in the history of the junior flagship event.

Seema Antil (bronze in discus throw, 2002), Navjeet Kaur Dhillon (bronze in discus throw, 2014), Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra (gold in javelin throw, 2016) and Hima Das (gold in 400m, 2018) were the earlier medal winners before the mixed 4x400m relay team win a bronze in this edition on Wednesday.

The mixed 4x400m relay team had won a bronze on the first day of competitions on Wednesday.

Another medal contender, Priya Mohan came up with a personal best time of 52.77 seconds in the women’s 400m final but was beaten to the podium by Kenya’s Sylvia Chelangat by 0.54 seconds.

Priya improved upon her previous best of 53.29 she had clocked while winning the National Inter-State Athletics Championships on June 28.