India’s Gurpreet Singh failed to finish the men’s 50km race walk event of the Olympics, pulling out after the 35km mark due to cramps under hot and humid conditions here on Friday.
The 37-year-old Gurpreet, one of the lowest ranked athletes in the event, was 51st at the 35km mark with a time of 2 hr 55 minutes and 19 seconds but dropped out just after that.
He had slowed down considerably and was seen sitting on the sidelines after the 35km mark, being helped by the medical team of the race but did not seem to be in much trouble.
Gurpreet has a personal best of 3:59:42 which he had clocked while winning gold during the National Open Race Walk Championships in February.
The temperature at the Sapporo Odori Park was around 25 degree celsius when the event started at 5:30am local time but rose to above 30 degree celsius when it ended after 9am local time.
The humidity was at a very high 80 per cent.
Fifty nine athletes started but 12 either did not finish or were disqualified.
Dawid Tomala of Poland won the gold with a time of 3:50:08, while Jonathan Hilbert (3:50:44) of Germany and Evan Dunfee (3:50:59) of Canada took the silver and bronze respectively.