Sawan Barwal secured a silver medal in the Asian Games marathon, breaking his own national record with a time of 2 hours, 11 minutes, and 37 seconds. This marks India's first marathon medal at the Games since 1982. Barwal, an army athlete, made a strategic transition to the marathon based on his physical capabilities and achieved this significant win after previously setting a national record in his debut marathon.

Sawan Barwal secured a silver medal in the Asian Games marathon, breaking his own national record with a time of 2 hours, 11 minutes, and 37 seconds. This marks India's first marathon medal at the Games since 1982. Barwal, an army athlete, made a strategic transition to the marathon based on his physical capabilities and achieved this significant win after previously setting a national record in his debut marathon.

Sawan Barwal secured a silver medal in the Asian Games marathon, breaking his own national record with a time of 2 hours, 11 minutes, and 37 seconds. This marks India's first marathon medal at the Games since 1982. Barwal, an army athlete, made a strategic transition to the marathon based on his physical capabilities and achieved this significant win after previously setting a national record in his debut marathon.

India's Sawan Barwal won an Asian Games marathon silver on Saturday — shattering his own national record in the process. The 28-year-old Armyman clocked 2 hours, 11 minutes, and 37 seconds to complete the distance of 42.195 km.

His silver is the first medal for India in the Asian Games marathon since the bronze won by Hosur Kukkappa Seetharam in the 1982 edition in New Delhi. Barwal is also the fourth Indian to have ever won a medal in the Asian Games marathon. Chhota Singh and Surat Singh Mathur had won a gold and a bronze respectively in the inaugural Asian Games in 1951 in New Delhi.

According to reports, it was his second national record in as many races. In April this year, he broke Shivnath Singh's 48-year-old national record in Rotterdam with a time of 2:11:58, in only the first marathon race of his career.

"This medal is very precious for me. I have been training and competing for 15-16 years. If I didn't get this medal, it would have been meaningless and a waste of time. This is a very big achievement for me," Sawan Barwal, who hails from Joginder Nagar in the Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh, told news agency PTI.

He made the shift to the marathon on the advice of his coaches — Younis Khan at the Army Sports Institute in Pune and Ajith Markose at the Reliance Foundation — after his VO2 max (maximum oxygen uptake) was found to be high, which would make him very good over the 42.195 km distance.

"I started the marathon because I had only one target, that is to break the national record. I was confident about making a mark in the marathon. So, it was the right decision," PTI quoted him as saying.

About his Asiad glory, he further said: "Today, I didn't run to break the national record. It could be as slow as possible, but I wanted to win a medal.

"When I started running at a good speed, I thought that I could break the national record. But still, breaking the national record was not in my mind. I just wanted to maintain my pace."

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