INDIA'S Ram Singh Yadav completed a hat-trick at the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (among Indian athletes) yesterday. However, as the athlete himself put it, "the win could have been much sweeter."

The army man clocked 2:18:03 as he was the first among the Indian athletes to breast the tape. However, his coach Subedar KS Matthew believes his ward, who clocked 2:20:33 in the 2007 edition of the race and 2:18:23 last year, could have at least shaved two minutes off his current time had it not been for a couple of goof ups by the organisers.

Late start
"Firstly, the race began about five to six minutes later than the scheduled 7:40 am start. Though this may sound like a small time frame, it meant that the athletes were exposed to the sun that much longer. And after the 30-km mark, every kilometre and every minute counts. Had we started earlier, he would have surely finished quicker," Matthew told MiD DAY. The coach's second argument was also supported by most of the elite athletes. "About 10 to 15 kms into the race the elite athletes were faced with a huge crowd of runners (casual participants of the half-marathon that was flagged off an hour earlier).

"The elite runners found it difficult trying to make their way past these fun-runners. Had there been a clear passage, the timings could have improved," added Matthew. Winners of the marathon, Kenyans Kenneth Mugara, David Tarus and John Kelai could only agree.

Race director Hugh Jones also admitted that there was a problem. "The crowd for the half marathon this time round was much larger than we expected. So, the elite runners did face some crowd problems in between," said Jones, who was seen clearing the path for elite runners atop a motorcycle.

"We will conduct a review of the race and hopefully these errors will be rectified in the future," he promised.