India emerges South Asian Marathon champion

New Delhi, Mar 5 (UNI) KC Ramu's superb run in the final leg of the Greatest Race on Earth at Hongkong helped Indian marathon team retain its South Asian title for the third year in a row.

India finished sixth among 30 nations in the Nation Challenge category of GROE 2006-07 and the team received 30,000 dollar cash award for their splendid effort.

Earlier, India was trailing behind Sri Lanka with more than three-minute lead after the Mumbai leg.

''Acting on Coach Pritam Singh's strategy Ramu remained with the leading group of Kenyan runners and soon after India's closest rival Sri Lanka runner Ajith Bhandara lagged behind and Ramu surged ahead and finished on the 15th place in overall with a timing of 2:25:11 while Bhandara took 2:29:17 to finish on the 20th position,'' said Rahul Pawar, team leader of the Indian team.

After cumulative timing calculation, Ramu's timing made India to finish the series with a 14-second lead over Sri Lanka to become South Asia champions.

India got a flying start in the GROE2006-07 Series through Bining Lynkoi in Nairobi, followed by Ajit Singh in Singapore but Nathuram failed to keep lead at home race in Mumbai but finally KC Ramu's excellent run in tough weather conditions of 25 degree Celsius and 96 per cent humidity in Hong Kong Marathon made India to retain its title.

UNI