New Delhi: National record holder Irfan Kolothum Thodi finished 26th in the men’s 20km event today at the IAAF World Race Walking Cup at Taicang, China. India’s star walker clocked 1:21:09 and was the best-finisher amongst his five compatriots in the fray. Overall, the Indian walkers finished 8th in the team event out of a total of 17 teams in the race.

Irfan, 24, had finished 10th in the 2012 Olympics with a new National record of 1:20:21, and this was his season’s best timing so far. The other Indian star walker and 2014 Asian Championship bronze medallist Gurmeet Singh clocked 1:21:20, to finish 27th.. This was Singh’s season’s best timing till now.

Meanwhile, Devender Singh and (1:22:07) and K Ganapathi (1:22:41) produced their personal bests to finish 33rd and 41st respectively while former National record holder Basanta Bahadur Rana clocked 1:23:15 to finish in 48th position.

The men’s 20km walk event witnessed a sensational finish as Ukrainian Ruslan Dmytrenko pulled off an incredible victory, dashing the hopes of reigning world champion Aleksander Ivanov and China’s Olympic champion Ding Chen. The Ukranian finished ahead of the competition with a timing of 1:18:37 while local boy Ding Chen clocked 1:20:28, to end up in 15th position.

The national anthem went up twice for Ukraine as they also added the team title in the event to their kitty while China and Japan took the silver and bronze respectively.