India's T Gopi and Kheta Ram put up a creditable show, breaching their personal bests to finish 25th and 26th, respectively, in the men's marathon on the last day of competitions in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday. The other Indian in the fray, Nitender Singh Rawat, finished 84th with a timing of 2:22:52.
Clocking 2:15:25 and 2:15:26, respectively, Gopi and Kheta improved upon their personal bests of 2:16:15 and 2:17:23. Kheta climbed his way from a lowly 84th at one stage to finish among the top 30.
Kenya's Eliud Kipchoge clocked 2:08:44 to win gold in a field of 155 runners. In all, 15 marathoners -- including big names such as Stanley Biwott (Kenya) and Tesfaye Abera (Ethiopia) -- did not finish the race.
A hawaldar in the Indian Army, Gopi completed the first 5km in 15:44, to be placed 73rd. Climbing to 55th position thereafter at the end of 20km with a timing of 1:02:48, Gopi was followed by Kheta and Rawat in 68th and 73rd places, respectively. At the end of 30km, both Gopi and Kheta made good progress and moved up by 13 and 15 spots, respectively. Fellow armyman Rawat, however, dropped 10 places with a timing of 1:38:07 to be ranked 83rd at the 30km mark.
Gopi was brought in for the Mumbai marathon earlier this year to act as a pacesetter to help Rawat -- who had already qualified for the Olympics -- improve his timing. Kheta was hoping to make the 2:19 cut-off. The plan was that Gopi would run no more than the first 30 km of the Mumbai marathon. Instead, the 27-year-old from Kerala had held on and finished 11th overall to qualify for the Games. It was Gopi's first full-marathon experience.