On a chilly Sunday morning, nearly 15,000 runners competed in the seventh edition of the Tata Steel Kolkata 25K, with victors Leonard Barsoton and Desi Jisa rewriting the records in the men’s and women’s top international categories, respectively.

Abhinav Bindra, an Olympian with a gold medal, served as the event ambassador and was present to watch the races from the stands, serving as a motivation to the competitors. Jhulan Goswami, a legend in women’s cricket and a former Indian captain, and Subhashree Ganguly, a popular actress of Tollywood, the event faces, were cheering on all the participants at the starting line, especially those taking part in the Ananda Run, the event’s heart and a celebration of Bengali spirit.

The prize fund was USD 100,000.

The dignitaries present included His Excellency Dr. C V Ananda Bose, State Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs, Power Sri Aroop Biswas, Major General SS Kahlon (GOC-Bengal Area), Lt. Gen. R P Kalita (GOC-in-C Eastern Command), Sri Debashish Kumar (MMIC, KMC) and Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal.

Overall International Men:

Leonard Barsoton (Kenya) 1:12:49; Birhanu Legese (Ethiopia) 1:12:54; Victor Kiplangat (Uganda) 1:12:56; Alfred Ngeno (Kenya) 1:13:15; Abdisa Tola (Ethiopia) 1:14:27.

Overall International Women:

Desi Jisa (Bahrain) 1:21:04; Zeineba Yimer (Ethiopia) 1:21:18; Mercyline Chelangat (Uganda) 1:21:31; Obse Abdeta (Ethiopia) 1:21:43; Ashete Bekere (Ethiopia) 1:22:12.

Indian Men:

Abhishek Pal (India) 1:17:52; Kalidas Hirave (India) 1:17:57; Srinu Bugatha (India) 1:18:25; Tirtha Pun (India) 1:19:23; Harshad Mhatre (India) 1:19:35.

Indian Women:

Sanjivani Jadhav (India) 1:34:23; Monika Choudhary (India) 1:37:00; Reenu Singh (India) 1:39:11; Nirma Thakur (India) 1:39:48; Jigmet Dolma (India) 1:41:57.

Run in Costume

Group Winners:

Little Big Help (Dance Skit-Boys (Masked and Freestyle Fusion); Neha and Sharbani (Not Messy, Messi Girls on History on Number 10).

Individual Winners:

Ashmita Guha (When Neymar meets Messi at the Ananda Run); Sunadita Dasgupta (How Football brings a smile to me despite Parkinson’s Disease).

Vijay Diwas Trophy

Indian Army VDT 2 (Pradeep Tomar, Andala SyamaSundara Rao, Sawat Singh) 04:32:14; Indian Army VDT 4 (Nathnel Topno, Jarpula Balu, Hemant Singh) 04:35:36; Indian Army VDT 1 (Rahul Singh, Sanjay Lakra, Deepak Kumar Thakur) 04:36:34.

Police Cup

Police Cup Men Team 110 (Rishikesh Chakraborty, Joydeb Dey, Manas Das) 01:44:45; Police Cup Team 31 (Rabindra Maity, MD Wazed Ali, Achong Abel Rongong Lepcha) 02:10:30); Police Cup Men Team 31 (Panchanan Datta, Laxman Chandra Roy, Chandan Bauri) 02:16:10.

Police Cup Women Team 2 (Nilima Mudi, Sova Maity, Dipanjali Roy) 03:16:06; (Lipika Mondol, Pritha Das, G B Surabhi) 03:57:18; Police Cup Women Team 7 (Saheli Dey, Urmimala Saha, Durga Barman) 04:01:03.

Congratulations to the winners!!

Priyanka Dutta