File picture: Earlier this year, Gulveer Singh became the first Indian runner to clock a sub-four-minute mile at the 24th Annual Music City Track Carnival. | Photo Credit: SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP

He might have spread his arms wide as he crossed the finish line in first place, but the smile on Gulveer Singh’s face at the end of the men’s 5000m race at the Inter-State Athletics Championships was more wry than celebratory.

The result had never been in question, but gold alone wasn’t what Gulveer had been targeting. “The goal is to qualify for the Asian Games,” Gulveer had told Sportstar on the eve of the competition.

Expectations had been high for the 28-year-old, who was running his first track race in nearly two years in India. He is considered one of the best Indian long-distance runners, holding records in 11 separate events. Earlier this year, he set his latest national record, clocking 13:03.93 in the 5000m at the LA Track Festival.

In Bhubaneswar, Gulveer only needed to run inside 13:39.18, the qualification mark set by the Athletics Federation of India for the Asian Games. But even as he sprinted down the final straight early on Wednesday morning at the Kalinga Stadium, it was clear that although he was well clear of the field, Gulveer wasn’t going to run anywhere near that fast.

He stopped the clock in 13:52.92. That timing is the slowest he’s run over the 5000m in nearly two years. He had previously clocked 13:54.70 at the Indian Open Athletics Championships in August 2024.

As the reigning Asian champion in both the 5000m and the 10,000m, it is still unlikely that Gulveer won’t travel to Nagoya for the continental showpiece, but he himself admits the result in Bhubaneswar isn’t one he’s happy about. “I am not satisfied with the time,” he told Sportstar after the race.

There isn’t anything specifically wrong with his preparation. For the last couple of years, Gulveer has been training predominantly at the high-altitude base in Colorado Springs in the USA with coach Scott Simmons. But while that stint has helped him produce some impressive results overseas, Gulveer says it was hard to adjust to competition back in humid Bhubaneswar.

“I came from the USA last week and I’m only about 50 percent recovered. I’m still trying to adjust to the time difference. Normally at this time I would be running a relaxed night run,” he says.

Making things harder was the fact that the synthetic track at the Kalinga Stadium has recently been relaid. “You need the track to settle a bit to get fast times. It’s still a little spongy,” he says.

Gulveer says that while he had started the race with the expectation of going for the qualifying mark, he began to dial back his effort once it became obvious that it wasn’t going to be possible. “It was very humid in the morning. Despite this, In the first two laps I tried to push the race but there wasn’t too much competition and I realised that it wasn’t going to be run as fast as I wanted,” he says.

He let others, Punjab’s Harmanjot Singh and Karnataka’s Shivaji Madappa, hold the lead at different points in the race before finally pushing clear over the last couple of laps. “I tried to push myself in the first few laps but I realised that the speed wasn’t coming so after that I adjusted my pace accordingly,” he says.

While he could have run faster, Gulveer says he had to prioritise future competitions, in particular the Commonwealth Games next month. “I will also be running the 1500m here (in Bhubaneswar) and I also will be running in the 5000m and 10000m at the Commonwealth Games in a month. I didn’t want to push myself too much before those races,” he says.

That’s also what his coach in the USA, Scott Simmons, had advised. “I was speaking to coach sahab before the race and he told me that I needed only to run an easy race. I didn’t have to push myself hard over here,” he says.

While the result wasn’t exactly what he would have hoped for, Gulveer is optimistic about the future. “I know I have bigger races that I want to do well in. If I get the chance to compete there I’ll attack even more there,” he says.

Published on Jun 24, 2026