Priyanka Goswami Becomes The First Indian Woman To Win A Medal In Women’s 10000m Race Walk At CWG’22

Priyanka Goswami brought India its 27th medal of the Commonwealth Games 2022 when she won an elusive silver in the women’s 10,000m race walk on Saturday

After the Indian lawn bowl women’s team, today Priyanka Goswami again scripted history by becoming the first Indian woman to win a medal in race walk in the 10,000m event at the Commonwealth Games. 

Priyanka Goswami brought India its 27th medal of the CWG 2022 when she won a silver in the women’s 10,000m race walk on Saturday. Goswami clocked a personal best time of 43:38.83s to finish second behind Jemima Montag (42:34.30) of Australia. Emily Wamusyi Ngii (43:50.86) of Kenya took the bronze.

Goswami jumped into the lead pretty quickly at the first blow of the whistle and maintained it to come first after the 4000m mark. However, she fell behind Australia’s Jemima Montag and Kenya’s Emily Wamusyi Ngii. Despite slipping to third at the end of 8km, this 26-year-old  covered great ground to overtake Ngii and come second. Bhawna Jat, the other Indian in the competition, finished 8th.

“This is the first Commonwealth Games medal in walking for an Indian woman so I’m really pleased to have created a piece of history,” Goswami said after the victory. “I wasn’t thinking about the Australian (gold medallist Jemima Montag), when you look at what we did at the Olympics in Tokyo and the world championships last month she is a better walker than me. I just concentrated on my own race and I hope to close the gap on her (in the future) step-by-step.” She further added. 

She started off her journey in athletics with track events and later moved to racewalking completely. Priyanka then went to secure a bronze medal in her racewalking debut at the 2015 National Games in Kerala. Apart from sports, fashion was the second love for this Uttar Pradesh athlete.

• Staff Reporter