The World of Running
No marathon runners from India at the Tokyo Olympics — What went wrong?
India's history at the marathon dates back to 1920 when Phadeppa Dareppa Chaugule became India's first Olympic marathon runner. He represented India in the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, and finished 19th with a timing of 2 hours 50 minutes 45.2 seconds. In the 2016 Rio Olympics, India had fielded 5 marathon runners, presumably, the biggest contingent so far.
However, there will be no one to race in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics. One can certainly blame the pandemic for a lot of contributing factors. The qualifying standard is 2:11:30 for men and 2:29:30 for women, while the qualifying period was originally from 1 January 2019 to 31 May 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the period was suspended from 6 April 2020 to 30 November 2020, with the end date extended to 31 May 2021. The world rankings period start date was also changed from 1 January 2019 to 1 December 2018 with a cap of 80 athletes and a country not exceeding a maximum of 3 athletes in each gender. In the men's marathon, 110 athletes from the world already achieved the qualifying standard, while among women, 96 athletes have achieved the qualifying standard. Both the first wave and second wave of Covid-19 in India were responsible for the cancellation of qualifying marathon events in India making it difficult for the hopefuls to qualify.