After Asiad Silver, Sawan Barwal targets World championships qualification 

Rohit Mitra

New Delhi: Indian Army runner Sawan Barwal has already broken the national record twice in the first two marathons he participated in and the promising athlete is confident that with experience he can significantly better his timing.

Hawaldar Barwal marked his marathon debut by breaking Shivnath Singh’s 48-year-old national record at the Rotterdam Marathon 2026 in April. Singh had set the record of 2:12:00 in Jalandhar in 1978, Barwal bettered it by clocking a timing of 2.11.58.

In his second race, the 28 year old secured a Silver medal at the marathon event at the 2026 Aichi Nagoya Asian Games after breaking his record by clocking 2.11.37.

Barwal, a resident of Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi district became only the forth Indian medallist at the Asian Games marathon event. Before him, Chhota Singh won the Gold medal at the 1951 edition in New Delhi, while Surat Singh Mathura won the Bronze the same year, Hosur Kukkappa Seetharan also registered a third place finish at the 1982 Asiad.

Barwal, who trains at Reliance Foundation Centre, Coonoor, Tamil Nadu felt that his fitness levels have improved now compared to what it was during his first marathon

“at Rotterdam I was running with the target of achieving a finish of 2.09 m, while at the Asian Games, I was targeting a podium finish, not thinking about the national record at all, compared to Rotterdam, my fitness was better in Japan” he said during a telephonic conversation.

Barwal will now focus on qualifying for next year’s World Athletics Championships Beijing 2027.

“2027 World championships will be a very big tournament, the qualifying races will start early next year, one needs to be in the top 100 in the world in order to qualify, so that will be high on the agenda next year.”

Creteria for male runners is 2.06 for qualifying for the World championships, Sawan expressed confidence that he would be able to substantially improve his timing within a year

“I am confident of achieving 2:09 m within a few months, I have high expectations from myself, slowly I am improving my timing, I will strive to get as close to the Asian record of 2.04 in due course.”

If he qualifies for the world championships, he will be the forth athlete to represent India at the competition.

Gopi Thonakal (2017 London Championships and 2019 Doha Championships), Orchatteri Jismi (2015 Beijing Championships) and Sudha Singh(2015 Beijing Championships) are the only Indian athletes to have competed at the premier event.

Barwal, who before becoming a marathon runner specialised in 5000 m and 10,000 m competitions spoke about the adjustments he had to make for competing at the longest format.

“In training of course the milage was significantly increased. As far as the mindset is concerned, the main stress was on remaining mentally strong after 30 kms, in order to ensure a strong finish. 30 kms is the point where it becomes tough.”

He thanked the Athletics Federation of India(AFI) and Reliance for supporting him “Reliance has supported me in my training, lodging and other needs, the AFI also supported me a lot, put a lot of trust in me, they sent me for a two month long training camp at Colorado Springs in the USA. Earlier marathon was taken as seriously, as it was not considered as a medal sport, now that has changed.”

He adviced aspiring marathon runners to be patient while honing their craft and not to expect immediate results

“one needs to have a lot of patience for being a marathon runner, he or she should be ready to train for years before seeing results”, he signed off.