For a moment you can only hear the falling rain on the imposing Heroes’ Square in Budapest. Under the watchful eye of bronze and marble statues of famous Hungarians, fifty people have gathered in the center of the square. Despite the bad weather, they wear little more than shorts and sleeveless shirts, their faces taut with concentration. When the starting gun sounds, they start moving and disappear, swaying their hips, up the boulevard towards the center of Budapest.
The World Athletics Championships kicked off on Saturday morning with the men’s 20-kilometer race walk. With this same event, the athletics tournament will start in just under a year at the Olympic Games in Paris.
That is where the comparison between those Games and this World Cup ends. In Budapest, athletes can compete in two individual distances – in addition to the 20 and 35 kilometers – and there is no team event. In Paris there is a mixed relay on the program, with the length of a marathon. The 20 kilometers is the only individual distance there.
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That will be the first time. At the last Games in Tokyo (in 2021), the 50-kilometer race walk, the classic distance that had been on the program since the 1932 Games, was said goodbye. According to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the event was no longer in line with the “Olympic family’s” commitment to gender equality – there was no equivalent to the women’s event.
‘not making money’
Athletes doubt that was the only reason. “I think the IOC just thinks it’s a stupid part that they can’t make money with,” says Canadian Evan Dunfee, who competed at both the last World Cup (in 2019) and the last Games (in 2021) where the 50 kilometers on the program was bronze won. Because the part takes place on public roads, it is free. “As one of the few events at the Games, that’s what I liked about it,” says Dunfee.
He is not the only one who misses the longest distance – world record 3.32.33. A new generation of speed walkers has grown up without the 50 kilometers. “If you had spoken to me a few years ago, I would have said that I would never want to run 50 kilometers. But now I feel a kind of retrospective disappointment,” says 24-year-old Australian Declan Tingay, who has never run the longest distance. “Because I’ll never know what it feels like.”
The 50 kilometers was a unique discipline, says Dunfee, you couldn’t just double your training for the 20 kilometers. “Within speed walking we say: it only starts after 35 kilometers. Then all your reserves are exhausted and it comes down to how well you took care of yourself. When did you eat, drink enough and cool yourself?” The distance was so tough, it was more of a race against the distance than against your opponents, says Dunfee. “That’s why it had a certain allure that the 20 kilometers will never have.”
Instead of the 50, the 35 kilometers has been introduced, although it will not be expired at the Games. In Dunfee’s eyes, that distance is no more than a kind of double 20 kilometers. “Just look at the results, all the top runners in the 20 are also the top in the 35.”
One of them is the Swede Perseus Karlström. He is first (20 km) and third (35 km) in the world rankings, but he has not trained for the longer of the two distances this year, he says. “I wanted to run an Olympic preparation with a view to next year and there is no 35 kilometers run there. So the focus was completely on the 20 kilometers.”
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Photo Robert Hegedus/EPA
In recent years, the sport has seen a lot of 50-kilometer specialists say goodbye. A few tried to convert to the 20 kilometers, including Dunfee. “But I’m still figuring out that distance. It’s so short, it goes so fast, you go straight into the red and it hurts more and more. You can not steady start and speed up later, like on the 50 kilometers.”
Disqualified
That can be seen in Budapest. Immediately after the start, a group of twenty men, call it a peloton, speeds away at a pace that is difficult for most amateur runners to keep up with. They complete the one-kilometre circle in less than four minutes – a speed of more than 15 kilometers per hour.
There are eight judges on the course who check whether it stays with walking. Athletes must have one foot touching the ground at all times and their standing leg must remain straight until their other leg comes alongside. That is difficult even for the best speed walkers in the world: Latvian Marius Ziukas is disqualified after three violations.
For Dunfee, things seem to be going too fast at first. He barely hangs on the elastic at the back of the peloton. Afterwards he will say that it took him a while to find his rhythm, because of the irregular course and the many puddles on the road. But after that he picks up steam; every round he seems to move a little more.
Now it appears that the 20 kilometers can also turn out to be a tactical competition. The Japanese Koki Ikeda walks forward in the beginning, but blows himself up. The Spaniard Álvaro Martín has organized his race better and with a breakaway at about five kilometers from the finish he takes the lead and does not relinquish it. He became world champion in a time of 1:17.32.
Behind him, Dunfee, Perseus Karlström from Sweden and Brazilian Caio Bonfim battle for the remaining podium spots. Karlström comes in second, and celebrates with a blue and yellow Viking helmet on his head. Behind that, Dunfee loses the battle for the bronze.
Still, he crosses the finish line with arms outstretched and clenched fists. “This was great. I wanted to show that I could also compete at this distance, and I succeeded.”