India’s Asian marathon champion Gopi Thonakal has qualified for the World athletics championships to be held in Doha in September-October after finishing 11th in the Seoul International Marathon.
The 30-year-old Gopi clocked his personal best 2 hours 13 minutes 39 seconds on Sunday, bettering the World Championships qualification mark of 2:16:00s. His earlier best was 2:15:16s last year.
Gopi’s time is the second best ever by an Indian after the four-decade-old National record of 2:12:00s, which is held by Shivnath Singh.
