2015 World Championships in Athletics – Women's 20 kilometres walk


The women's 20 kilometres walk at the 2015 World Championships in Athletics was held at the Beijing National Stadium on 28 August.

Summary

The defending champion Elena Lashmanova would not be here, while she serves her drug suspension. In fact the entire Russian team did not compete here amid the drug scandal surrounding their coach Viktor Chegin. It looked like world record holder, world leader Liu Hong, walking on home soil was the prohibitive favorite. Liu's one complication was her teammate Xiuzhi Lu. Like in the men's race, the two Chinese walkers took off hard from the start, only Anežka Drahotová tried to go with them. That lasted about 4 km, from that point on the two walkers were out on their own almost tied by a string, swapping the lead occasionally though Lu was setting the pace the majority of the time. They hit 5K in 22:24; 10K in 44:19 with a 30-second lead and 15K in 1:06:24. The chase pack was Lyudmyla Olyanovska, Elisa Rigaudo, Eleonora Giorgi and Érica de Sena. de Sena was the first to fall off pace around 12K, both of the Italians were later asked to leave the course. Between 10 and 15K the lead actually shrunk to 20 seconds, but the closing 5K in 21:22 settled it for everyone but the two Chinese walkers. They battled neck and neck until just about the time they re-entered the stadium, when Lu seemed to concede to Liu and walked the remainder on the track in her footsteps. With the domestic crowd going crazy, Lu crossed the finish line virtually in Liu's shadow, the separation.26 of a second for the closest finish for a race walk in World Championships history. Because it is a road course, the official times are only accurate to one second so both athlete's times round to the same time. Olyanovska continued to hold on, finishing just 28 seconds back for bronze. The rest of the field finished more than 1:15 behind her.
It was the first gold medal for the home team at these championships.

Records

Prior to the competition, the records were as follows:
World record1:24:38La Coruña, Spain6 June 2015
Championship record1:25:41Helsinki, Finland7 August 2005
World Leading1:24:38La Coruña, Spain6 June 2015
African Record1:34:19Nairobi, Kenya1 August 2010
Asian Record1:24:38La Coruña, Spain6 June 2015
North, Central American and Caribbean record1:28:31Rio Maior, Portugal6 April 2013
South American Record1:29:37Dudince, Slovakia21 March 2015
European Record1:25:02London, Great Britain11 August 2012
Oceanian record1:27:44Naumburg, Germany2 May 2004

Qualification standards

Schedule

Results

The race was started at 08:30.
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
Liu Hong1:27:45
Lü Xiuzhi1:27:45
Lyudmyla Olyanovska1:28:13
Ana Cabecinha1:29:29
Antonella Palmisano1:29:34
Érica de Sena1:30:06
Brigita Virbalytė1:30:20
Anežka Drahotová1:30:32
Alejandra Ortega1:31:04
10María José Poves1:31:06
11Nadiya Borovska1:31:18
12Mirna Ortiz1:31:32
13Rachel Seaman1:31:39
14Raquel González1:32:00
15Viktória Madarász1:32:01
16Paola Pérez1:32:12
17Nie Jingjing1:32:40
18Alana Barber1:33:20
19Sandra Arenas1:33:24
20Maria Michta-Coffey1:33:24
21Vera Santos1:34:01
22Wendy Cornejo1:34:12
23Inês Henriques1:34:47
24Claudia Ștef1:34:51
25Kumiko Okada1:34:56
26Miranda Melville1:35:19
27Jeon Yeong-eun1:35:48
28Maritza Poncio1:35:53
29Cisiane Lopes1:36:06
30Mária Czaková1:36:08
31Émilie Menuet1:36:17
32Laura García-Caro1:36:22
33Laura Polli1:36:26
34Rachel Tallent1:36:27
35Lee Jeong-eun1:36:52
36Lucie Pelantová1:38:34
37Khushbir Kaur1:38:53
38Agnieszka Dygacz1:39:06
39Mayra Herrera1:39:23
40Marie Polli1:39:49
41Mária Gáliková1:40:06
42Olena Shumkina1:41:30
Beki Smith
Claudia Balderrama
Sapana Sapana
Eleonora Giorgi
Elisa Rigaudo
Neringa Aidietytė
Kimberly García
Kelly Ruddick