The men's 20 kilometres race walk at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics was held on a two kilometre course comprising lengths of The Mall between Buckingham Palace and Admiralty Arch on 13 August 2017.Start list
The winning margin was two seconds which was also the winning margin in this event at the 2001 edition of these championships. As of 2024, these are the only two occasions where this event has been won by less than seven seconds at these championships.
Summary
As is typical, this race started off as a pack. By five km, the pack still numbered 32, exactly half the starters, walking a leisurely (for them) 19:54. The second five km was exactly the same, passed in 39:48 but the pack had worn down to 17. British champion, walking before the home crowd, accelerated the pace, dropping many off the pack. But out in front, Bosworth was given more scrutiny and earned the deadly red card disqualifying him from the race. By 15 km in 59:33 (19:45), the pack was down to eight and defending champion Miguel Ángel López (Spain) was no longer one of them. Rallying from a 23-second deficit at ten km, South African Lebogang Shange came back to the group as others dropped off. By the last two km loop, the leaders Éider Arévalo (Colombia) and Sergey Shirobokov, an Authorised Neutral Athlete were in racewalking's version of a sprint finish, dropping Shange, Christopher Linke (Germany), Dane Bird-Smith (Australia), Wang Kaihua (China) and Caio Bonfim (Brazil) to fight for bronze. Arévalo broke the race open enough to get a Colombian flag from the audience, holding it around his neck as he made sure he had enough of a gap on Shirobokov, then crossing the finish line with the flag held high two seconds ahead. Nine seconds behind them, Bonfim had broken away from Shange to secure bronze. Arévalo, Bonfim and Shange all set national records.
Records Before the competition records were as follows:
Record Athlete Date LocationWorld1:16:36Yusuke Suzuki15 Mar 2015Nomi, JapanChampionship1:17:21Jefferson Pérez23 Aug 2003Saint-Denis, FranceWorld leading1:17:54Wang Kaihua4 Mar 2017Huangshan, ChinaAfrican1:19:02Hatem GhoulaEisenhüttenstadt, GermanyAsian1:16:36Yusuke Suzuki15 Mar 2015Nomi, JapanNACAC1:17:46Julio René Martínez8 May 1999Eisenhüttenstadt, GermanySouth American1:17:21Jefferson Pérez23 Aug 2003Saint-Denis, FranceEuropean1:17:02Yohann Diniz8 Mar 2015Arles, FranceOceanian1:17:33Nathan Deakes23 Apr 2015Cixi, China
The following records were set at the competition:
Record Athlete Date Brazilian1:19:04Caio Bonfim13 Aug 2017South African1:19:18Lebogang ShangeColombian1:18:53Éider Arévalo
Qualification standard The standard to qualify automatically for entry was 1:24:00.
Results The final took place on 13 August at 14:19. The results were as follows: Rank Name Nationality Time Notes Éider Arévalo 1:18:53 Sergey Shirobokov 1:18:55 Caio Bonfim 1:19:04 Lebogang Shange 1:19:18 Christopher Linke 1:19:21 Dane Bird-Smith 1:19:28 Wang Kaihua 1:19:30 Álvaro Martín 1:19:41 Alberto Amezcua 1:19:46 10 Miguel Ángel López 1:19:57 11 Isamu Fujisawa 1:20:04 12 Artur Brzozowski 1:20:33 13 Diego García 1:20:34 14 Eiki Takahashi 1:20:36 15 Nils Brembach 1:20:42 16 Giorgio Rubino 1:20:47 17 Hagen Pohle 1:20:53 18 Brian Pintado 1:21:17 19 Jin Xiangqian 1:21:24 20 Damian Błocki 1:21:29 21 Érick Barrondo 1:21:34 22 Aliaksandr Liakhovich 1:21:39 23 Irfan Kolothum Thodi 1:21:40 24 Kévin Campion 1:21:46 25 Francesco Fortunato 1:22:01 26 Kim Hyun-sub 1:22:08 27 Ruslan Dmytrenko 1:22:26 28 Mauricio Arteaga 1:22:28 29 Marius Žiūkas 1:22:38 30 Samuel Gathimba 1:22:52 31 Choe Byeong-kwang 1:22:54 32 Ivan Losev 1:23:03 33 César Rodríguez 1:23:05 34 Wang Rui 1:23:09 35 Jesús Tadeo Vega 1:23:10 36 Georgiy Sheiko 1:23:11 37 Perseus Karlström 1:23:36 38 Daisuke Matsunaga 1:23:39 39 Yerko Araya 1:23:46 40 José Alejandro Barrondo 1:23:47 41 Callum Wilkinson 1:23:54 42 Alexandros Papamichail 1:23:56 43 Pedro Daniel Gómez 1:24:11 44 Anatole Ibáñez 1:24:23 45 Ersin Tacir 1:24:43 46 Juan Manuel Cano 1:24:49 47 Manuel Esteban Soto 1:24:56 48 Matteo Giupponi 1:25:20 49 Dzmitry Dziubin 1:25:41 50 Devender Singh 1:25:47 51 Benjamin Thorne 1:26:56 52 José María Raymundo 1:27:09 53 Jakub Jelonek 1:27:43 54 Ganapathi Krishnan 1:28:32 55 Serhiy Budza 1:29:25 56 Rhydian Cowley 1:30:40 57 Kim Dae-ho 1:30:41 58 Mert Atlı 1:31:26 Salih Korkmaz Eder Sánchez Simon Wachira Tom Bosworth Alex Wright Richard Vargas
References