KOCHI:
Asian Games bronze-medallist O P Jaisha made her 42-km race debut on Sunday memorable by finishing first among the elite Indian women in the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon in a record time.
Clocking 2:37.29, she broke the 1995 national mark of Vally Satyabhama (2:39.10) and pushed specialist marathon runner Lalita Babar of Maharashtra (2:38:21) to the second place.
With this, both of the them have qualified for the World Championships to be held in Beijing in August. The cut-off time was 2 hours and 44 minutes. Ethiopian runners Tesfaye Abera and Dinkesh Mekash clinched the top awards in the overall race, in which Jaisha and Lalita came eighth and ninth, bagging the cash awards of `5 lakh and `4 lakh respectively.
“I am happy with my performace, but if the event started an hour earlier, I could have clocked an even better time,” said the 31-year-old Kerala runner, who is part of the state athletics team for the 35th National Games.
“The marathon started at 7.20 am and soon the weather started getting implacably warm. I was told it was some 26 degrees after eight. With most of my training taking place at the high-altitude training centre in Ootty, such temperatures can sap your energy fast,” said Jaisha, who will compete in the 1,500 m and 5,000 m races for Kerala in the National Games.