The first-year Bachelor of Arts student of Patiala’s Punjabi University won the gold medal with a time of 1:39:10.48 seconds, but fell short of the meet record of 1:38:40.29.
Baljeet has raced over 10km as a junior, but was excited to win a 20km title on her debut.
The Punjabi University student stayed with the leading group for the first 10km. She surged ahead after the 11km mark and was on her own thereafter.
It was a perfect start for Baljeet as she covered the first 10km in approximately 48 minutes. The pace was good enough to clock 1:36 for the 20km distance, says her coach Gurdev Singh.
The promising athlete from Mansa in Punjab finished seventh in the women’s 10km race walk at the World U20 Athletics Championships held last year in Nairobi, Kenya.
Her immediate future goal is to better her performance at next month’s national race walk championship in Ranchi.
Baljeet’s training partner Payal from Punjabi University won bronze while Rakhi Kushbala of Professor Rajendra Singh University took home silver. Jyoti from Punjabi University was fourth.
Overall, Punjabi University was declared the winner of the team title in the 20km race walk event.
Out of a total of 52 athletes, only 34 finished the 20km race.
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