Beijing, (PTI): ndian women's 4x400m relay team and men's 50km race walkers brought up the rear with disappointing performances on the penultimate day of the World Athletics Championships here today.

Sandeep Kumar and Manish Singh Rawat finished 26th and 27th, respectively out of 38 athletes who completed the men's 50km race walk event with timings of 3:57:03 and 3:57:11 early in the morning.

It was season's best performance for Sandeep while Rawat's effort was his personal best.
Matej Toth of Slovakia won the gold in 3:40:32 while last two edition bronze medallist Jared Tallent of Australia bagged the silver in 3:42:17. Japan's Takayuki Tanii won the bronze in 3:42:55.

Then the Indian women's 4x400m team crashed out at the heat stage. The quartet of Tintu Luka, M R Poovamma, Debasree Majumdar and Jisna Mathew finished last in an eight-team heat number two with a season's best timing of 3:29.08.

United States were placed on top after the qualifying heats with a timing of 3:23.05, followed by Nigeria (3:23.27) and Jamaica (3:23.62).

Indian women's team had won a gold in the 2014 Incheon Asian Games through the quartet of Priyanka Panwar, Luka, Mandeep Kaur and Poovamma with a Games record time of 3:28.68.

Indian women's team had never entered the finals of World Championships earlier and the sad story continued here as well.

The only consolation is the Indian team delivered their best ever effort in a World Championships. The previous best was 3:31.55 by a quartet of Vandana Shanbag, Vandana Rao, P T Usha and Shiny Abraham way back in 1987 in Rome.