In a record of sorts, 12 Indian athletes have qualified for the prestigious World Race Walking Cup to be held on May 3-4 in Taicang, China.
Five Indians made the cut in men's 20km race walk event while another five qualified in men's 50km competition.
National record holder K T Irfan, Gurmeet Singh, Devender Singh, K Ganapathi and Basant Bahadur Rana qualified in men's 20km race walk event.
In men's 50km race walk, the five Indians who made the cut are Sandeep Kumar, Babubhai Panucha, Maniram Patel, Manish Singh and Surinder Singh.
In women's 20km race walk event, Khushbir Kaur and Rani Yadav will represent the country.
Twelve athletes making the cut for the prestigious World Race Walking Cup is an achievement in itself as it will be India's largest perticipation in a top one-event athletics competition in recent years.
"12 athletes qualifying for an event of such importance is a rare achievement. World Race Walking Cup is the premier event of the IAAF in Race Walk and India is sending its largest contingent in a world event in athletics in recent memory," a top Athletics Federation of India told PTI.
India is sending one of the largest number of contingents in the event. Hosts China will have 27 competitors, followed by 22 from Spain, 21 each from Russia and Ukraine, 18 from Italy and 14 each from United States and Mexico and 13 from Portugal.
