West Java’s long-distance running athlete Agus Prayogo bagged the gold medal in the men’s 10,000-meter race at Papua’s 20th National Sports Week (PON) on Tuesday.
The gold medal is the third that the “king” of long-distance has secured during this year’s PON. He also secured first place in the men’s 5,000m run and the men’s marathon.
Competing at the Mimika Sports Complex, Mimika, Papua, Prayogo managed to reach the finish line with the fastest time of 31 minutes and 6.35 seconds.
Central Sulawesi’s Noveldi Petingko finished second with a time of 31 minutes and 46.39 seconds, while West Kalimantan’s Irmansyah came third with a time of 31 minutes and 46.40 seconds.
Despite winning the gold medal, Prayogo failed to break his own PON record of 30 minutes and 11.01 seconds, which he had obtained during the Riau PON XVIII in 2012.
On Tuesday, Prayogo dominated the race from the start. The 36-year-old established his lead during the first 2,000m.
Entering 5,000m, Petingko and Irmansyah started to leave the pack behind and follow Prayogo, who had overtaken the last runner.
From this point, the competition between Petingko and Irmansyah heated up. Until the final leg of the race, Petingko remained in third place right behind Irmansyah.
However, during the last second, Petingko slipped past Irmansyah and secured second place. The time difference between the two was just 0.01 seconds.
However, Prayogo still emerged at the top, beating Petingko by 40 seconds.
When contacted after the race, Prayogo said that he did not perform as well as he could considering that he failed to break his own PON record.
He remarked that the high humidity at the stadium was one of the factors behind his less-than-optimal performance.
“You cannot outrun weather, so my pace slowed down. I looked back and see how far behind everybody is, so I decided to just aim for gold,” he affirmed.
Source: Antara News