20km walk Ranchi: Unheralded Bhawna Jat qualified for the Tokyo Olympics in the 20km race walk event after pulling off a shock win with a national record time at the National Championships here on Saturday.
Bhawna, 23, who hails from a poor farmeru2019s family at Kabra village in Rajasthan, clocked 1 hour 29 minutes and 54 seconds, well inside the Olympic qualification time of 1: 31: 00, to win the gold.
Bhawnau2019s effort was a massive improvement of more than eight minutes from her personal best of 1: 38.30s set in October last year during the National Open Championships. u201c Itu2019s a dream come true. I was doing in the range of 1: 27: 00s during training and so I knew that if the conditions are all right I would be able to breach this Olympic qualifying mark of 1: 31: 00s,u201d she said.
PTI
