India's pioneering racewalking champion Priyanka Goswami finished 41st in the Women's 20km Walk Final at the Paris Olympics 2024. The record-holding athlete clocked 1 hour, 39 minutes and 55 seconds, more than 10 minutes outside her season's best of 1:29:48. The 28-year-old athlete is the first Indian woman to win a medal for race walk after clinching silver at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. She also represented India at the Tokyo Olympics when she finished in the 17th position. Gowasmi qualified for the Paris Games by meeting the mark at the Indian Open National Race walking competition in Ranchi on February 14, 2023.
Who is Priyanka Goswami?
Priyanka Goswami was born on March 10, 1996, in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. The 28-year-old works with the Indian Railways. She started her sporting journey in 2011 and rose to fame in 2017, after winning the Indian Race Walking Championships in Delhi, where she clocked at 1:37:58.
Before switching to athletics, Goswami practised gymnastics at school. Her interest in running was sparked by prize bags available to successful competitors. She made history at the Commonwealth Games 2022, after winning a silver in the 10,000 metre women's race. The timings Goswami recorded were 43:38.00.
In the 2020 Indian Race Walking Championships, Goswami came second with a time of 1:31:36.
She achieved a national record time of 1:28.45 seconds to win the 20 km race walking event at the 8th National and International Race Walking Championships in February 2021, qualifying her for the Tokyo Olympics 2020, where she came in 17th place.
At the Asian Games 2022 in Hangzhou, China, Goswami finished fifth, clocking 1:43:07 in the 20-kilometre race. Reacting to her slowest performance of the season, she told Hindustan Times, "I didn't feel like waking up at all."
However, she soon buckled herself up for the Olympic qualifiers. In February 2023 at the Indian Open National Race walking competition in Ranchi, Goswami successfully grabbed herself a ticket to Paris by clocking 1:28:50.
With her coach Brent Vallance, she stayed in Australia's Canberra from the beginning of 2024 to March, training with some of the world's best racewalkers like Australia's Jemima Montag and Sandra Arenas of Colombia.
"I've spent plenty of years doing this. But not once did I have a plan for an entire year," she told HT in a late 2023 interview. "This coach is looking more long-term; he wants me to compete there but not peak."
On March 3, 2024, the national record holder clocked her best time outside the country to finish a creditable seventh in the 20km Chinese Race Walking Grand Prix in Taicang, China. She beat her own record, clocking 1:29:48.
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