Nitender Singh Rawat and Kavita Raut won the inaugural Tata Steel Kolkata 25k run in the men's and women's categories respectively today.
Nitender who had finished second among the Indian athletes at the Delhi Half Marathon last month, clocked 1:19:39 secs while former Asian Games silver-medallist Kavita stopped the clock at 01:33.39 to top the podium in the women's category.
He had a tough men's field with Elam Singh and Soji Mathew as fellow runners as the trio ran together till the 19km mark before Niteder broke away towards the final 500m to take the gold.
Elam Singh, who regularly practices in Kolkata at Fort Williams, missed the opportunity to win the title by 8 seconds as he finished the race at 01:19:47 with Soji Mathew following to finish his run at 01:20:01.
Nitender said he would concentrate on the Mumbai full marathon next year with an eye on the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
The women's race witnessed yet another tough field as Kavita Raut and former Asian Games gold-medallist Sudha Singh both poised favourably to win the title.
Kavita and Sudha stayed together up until 24km mark.
With only 400 meter before the finish line, Kavita out-ran Sudha to take the first position. Sudha finished with 01:33:49 to come second ahead of Manisha Salunkhe (01:35:20).
A total of 6,588 runners participated in the inaugural edition of the Rs 21,54,000 prize money event across different categories.
The top three Elite athletes in the 25K category won Rs 250,000, Rs 175,000 and Rs 100,000 respectively.
Results:
Indian Athlete Men: Nitender Singh Rawat 01:19.39; Elam Singh 01:19.47; Soji Mathew 01:20.01.
Indian Athlete Women: Kavita Raut 01:33.39; Sudha Singh 01:33.49; Manisha Salunkhe 01:35:20.
Open 10K (Men):
(45 to u-55 yrs): Idris Mohamed 00:37.04; Ranjit Mahato 00:40.03; Rao Garimella 00:44.52.
(55 to u-65 yrs): Prabhakara Rao Mulagala 00:53.12; Sunil Kumar Sethia 01:01.27; Samar Kanti Das 01:04:36.
(65 to u-75 yrs): Vijay Kumar Jain 01:25.10; G D Agarwal 01:28.51.
Open 10K (Women):
(15 to u-25 yrs): Krishna Haldar 00:41.28; Beli Yesmin 00:42.15; Sonalia Pal 00:52.41.
(25 to u-35 yrs): Pratima Tudu 00:38.25; Shikha Baid 01:00.11; Ashwini Jha 01:00.24.
