Gopi, Kheta Ram clock personal best in marathon; Yogeshwar crashes out

www.mangaloretoday.com

Rio de Janeiro, Aug 21, 2016: India’s Thanackal Gopi and Kheta Ram registered their personal best timings to finish 25th and 26th in the men’s marathon at the Rio Olympics, here today.

Gopi registered his personal best timing of 2:15:25s, while Ram was just a second behind his compatriot, clocking 2:15:26s to complete the race and bring down the curtains on India’s campaign.

 

The other Indian in the fray Nitendra Singh clocked 2:22:52s to finish at the 84th spot.

Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge clinched the gold with a timing of 2:08:44s while the silver and bronze went to Ethiopia’s Feyisa Lilesa (2:09:54s) and United States’ Galen Rupp (2:10:05s) who also clocked his personal best time while running on rain-drenched roads.

Yogeshwar crashes out with first-round loss
Celebrated wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt failed to sign off his Olympic career with a medal, losing in the opening round to Mongolian Ganzorigiina Mandakhnaran whose quarterfinal defeat dashed the Indian’s hopes of a repechage at the Rio Games here today.

Expectations were high from Yogeshwar, a London Olympics bronze-medallist, and he was touted as a strong medal prospect. But he looked a pale shadow of his previous gritty self in the 0-3 loss to Mandakhnaran in the qualification round bout.

After his loss in the qualification, Yogeshwar’s only hope of making the medal round depended on his Mongolian opponent reaching the gold medal bout.

However, Mandakhnaran went down 0-6 to Russia’s Soslan Lyudvikovich Ramonov, the gold medallist at the 2014 World Championship in Tashkent, in the quarterfinals to end the Indian grappler’s dream of signing off with a medal.