Gold in the 5,000m walk at Malviya Stadium: Kashi's Shikha Yadav tops a field drawn from 69 districts

The race walk is the event nobody watches until somebody wins it, and on Sunday it belonged to Varanasi. Shikha Yadav took gold in the girls' under-20 5,000-metre walk at the 61st UP State Junior Athletics Championship, held at Madan Mohan Malviya Stadium here in the city — a home track, a long event, and a discipline that rewards patience more than a finishing kick. She was not the only one from Kashi on the podium. Shubham Yadav of Varanasi finished first in the boys' under-20 100 metres, the shortest race on the card, which gave the district a rare pairing: a win at each end of the distance range on the same weekend. The championship drew roughly 1,900 athletes from 69 districts across 157 events, so the fields were deep and the qualifying standard was anything but soft. The meet doubles as a selection trial. Athletes picked from these results go on to the national junior championship in Dehradun from 14 to 16 September. For young runners and walkers training on the Sigra and BHU tracks, that is the next date on the calendar — and for the rest of the city, a reminder that Kashi's athletics scene has quietly built a pipeline that keeps sending names further up the ladder.

Compiled by HelloBanaras from public sources: Amar Ujala — Varanasi