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Harminder wins 20km walk bronze

October 09, 2010 13:50 IST

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India secured an unexpected bronze in the men's 20km walk when Harminder Singh finished third behind the Australian duo of Jarred Tallent and Luke Adams with a personal best of 1:23:28s at the Commonwealth Games on Saturday.

The 26-year-old Harminder finished a minute and 10 seconds behind silver-medallist Adams while Tallent, a double-Olympic walk medallist in the Beijing Olympic Games, clinched the gold medal, having trailed Adams till the last two kilometers, in a new Games record of 1:22:18s.

However, there was disappointment for India in the women's 20km walk in which Rani Yadav was the best-placed at sixth after clocking 1:42:54s.

Another, Indian Sandhya Jolly, finished eighth in 1:51:44s, while Deepmala Devi failed to even finish the race and ended up bottom of the heap.

England's Jo Jackson grabbed the gold medal in the event, clocking 1:34:22s, while Australia Claire Tallent, wife of men's gold winner Jared, settled for the silver in 1:36:55s.

Kenya's Wanjiru Grace took the bronze in 1:37:49s.

The gold helped England catch up with India on the gold medal tally and also pushed them up to the second spot, having won more silver medals (37) than the host nation (16), on the sixth morning of competition.