'Priyanka, abb slow nahi hona': The story of India's historic race-walk at CWG 2022

Commonwealth Games podium in Birmingham wearing a historic silver, it would be difficult to miss what she's holding in her left hand. Dressed in the colours of the Indian flag, it's a statue of Lord Krishna in his 'bal roop' (childhood image), devotedly called 'Bal Gopal'. On Saturday, when India had its eyes on the wrestling arena in Birmingham, a piece of athletics history was being written by the 26-year-old devotee of Lord Krishna from Muzaffarnagar. In gold-medal position for the first 4000m of the 10000m women's race-walk, Priyanka lost the top spot to Australia's Jemima Montag. But she had enough fuel in the tank to finish second for a historic silver medal with a personal best time of 43:38.83. Saturday for Indian athletics became even more special and historic when Avinash Sable broke into Kenya's dominance in the 3000m steeplechase to win a silver medal with a new national record. With four medals so far in track and field -- Tejaswin Shankar in high jump and Murali Sreeshankar in long jump being the others - this is now the best showing by Indian athletics in a CWG outside of India.

(Priyanka led the field until the 4000m mark - ANI Photo)A national record holder in the 20km race walk, which is her pet event, Priyanka was walking her first race on track, instead of road, in years. The 20km race walk is not part of the programme at Birmingham CWG, while the 10km version is not an Olympic event. "It was a different feeling competing on track...I have done 20km and 35km, so 10km was not tough. I did the 35km at the World Championships in the USA last month, so I got confidence from there," said Priyanka, talking to journalists from Birmingham in an online press conference. TimesofIndia.com was part of it. For