A top-25 finish on a senior World Championships debut is remarkable for any athlete, not least a teenager.
Masatora Kawano booked his place on Japan’s 2020 Olympic team by winning the 50km race walk in Takahata in a national record of 3:36:45 on Sunday (27).
“You can do this. You know this. You got this.” When the fatigue was reaching a crescendo, when Evan Dunfee’s legs and arms and lungs and heart were held ransom by the slow, torturous pain of the 50km race walk, this was his negotiation strategy. This was his way out.
When Tokyo was announced as the host city of the 2020 Olympic Games, it barely registered on Koki Ikeda’s radar.
Before the IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships Taicang 2018, even the country’s most senior athletics journalists were not quite familiar with Liang Rui.
The IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships Taicang 2018 reached an exciting climax as Koki Ikeda led Japan to double gold in the men’s 20km race walk.
The U20 women’s 10km race walk at the IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships Taicang 2018 witnessed a thrilling battle between three athletes on the final two-kilometre loop as Alegna Gonzalez of Mexico bettered her own North American U20 record with 45:08.
Defending champion Maria Guadalupe Gonzalez of Mexico produced a storming last five kilometres in the 20km to become the first senior woman in the history of the championships to win back-to-back titles at the at IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships Taicang 2018 on Saturday (5).
Zhang Yao added another global age-group title to his collection by winning the U20 men’s 10km race walk at the IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships Taicang 2018.
Japan had never won a gold medal in the history of the IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships, or a medal of any colour in the 50km race walk, but history was rewritten in Taicang on Saturday (5).
On her debut at the distance, China’s Liang Rui won the women’s 50km race walk in a world record* of 4:04:36 at the IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships Taicang 2018.