Today in La Coruna has rewritten the history of the world women's race walk.

The memory of Anna Rita Sidoti not could be better honored, if not with a new world record in the classic Olympic distance of 20 km.

 

20 km Women

 

Just before the start of the race, all athletes in silence for a minute with the international jury sided with this small tribute to honor her who here on Cantones, today full of posters that remembered, had won twice in 1996 and 1998 and who recently passed away.

The applause after it dissolved the moment of tension giving space to the race, the one that Anna Rita have looked from up there.

 

Fast start of Liu Hong speaks a lot about the intentions of the strong Chinese coached by Sandro Damilano, which is followed by far only training partner Quieyang Shenjie. but soon will only chasing at the distance.

 

Behind them a group of others with Julia Takacs, Erica de Sena and Ana Cabecinha. A little further behind the Italian Valentina Trapletti arrived in La Coruna in the late evening together with Federica Curiazzi, Marta Stach and Vito Di Bari.

 

The split time to 10 km of Liu Hong is very fast on the rhythms of the world record (42:38) and while the speaker invites the public to support the trial of Liu Hong she continues to increase his pace and to get closer to what until yesterday may have seemed a dream, but now it was going to turn into a pleasant reality.

 

Meanwhile the men's race already underway in Cantones there were more than 120 athletes to compete: a beautiful sight on the course of 1 km.

 

Liu Hong, beautiful, focused, impeccable, continues to achieve her dream covering the second 10 km in a time of 42:00. Her final time is the new world record that erases that of Lashmanova in London and even less time obtained in Russia but that had not been approved mainly for the lack of the international jury: those of 1:24:50 and 1:24:54 of the other Russian Olimpiada Ivanova and Olga Kaniskina.

 

 

The teammate Quieyang Shenjie comes after more than three minutes in a "normal" 1:27:44 and not know yet if she will be selected for the World Championships in Beijing since in the selections in march she had arrived only fourth. All this speaks volumes about the movement of race walking in China at this particular time.

 

The race of the other passes unfortunately almost in the background behind this performance.

At 16 km behind the impulse of Erica de Sena and Ana Cabecinha the group of pursuers fell apart and the Spanish Tackacs Julia prefers to stop.

Those who insist was Valentina Trapletti author of a nice second part of the race and finish fifth in 1:31:44.

Third place just in front of her went to Erica de Sena in 1:29:50 that had preceded Ana Cabecinha (1:30:19).

 

 

20 km men

 

Passes almost overshadowed the male race of very high level compared to female.

 

Immediately after the start the Chinese go to lead along with Miguel Angel Lopez.

After a couple of laps in which they had alternated in the head Chen Ding and Wang Zhen, the latter decides to race solo and force the pace.

Followed about fifty meters by Chen Ding, Cai Zelin and Miguel Angel Lopez.

The others even more distant.

 

The victory is not in question, and something interesting to say can still fight for the places of honor.

 

Victory to Wang Zhen in an excellent 1:18:00.

Chen Ding finished second in 1:18:44, while for the third-place Cai Zelin has the best in 1:19:45 on Miguel Angel Lopez (1:20:04) that prevails on Australian Dane Bird-Smith (1:20:05) and the Japanese Eiki Takahashi 1:20:08.

Behind them the Ecuadorian Andres Chocho (1:20:40).

 

Who thought that China was not the opponent to beat at the upcoming World Championships in Beijing will have to reflect a moment.

 

The former recognised world record was 1:25:02, set by Russia’s Yelena Lashmanova when winning at the London 2012 Olympic Games. There had been faster times of 1:24:50 and 1:24:54 by her compatriots Olimpiada Ivanova and Olga Kaniskina that had not been recognised due to not fulfilling world record ratification requirements concerning the number of international judges present.

 

Assuming Liu’s record is ratified, the three-time IAAF World Championships medallist rectifies this situation in the record books.

 

In almost perfect conditions, close to the sea front of the Atlantic coastal city, Liu covered the first 10 one-kilometre laps in 42:39 before posting a stunning negative split over the second 10km of 41:59.

 

To give an idea of Liu’s overwhelming dominance today, and her solid walking style meant that she only received one warning, she lapped all her opponents except for her compatriot Qieyang Shenjie, who finished second more than three minutes in arrears despite clocking a personal best of 1:27:44.

 

Liu against the clock

 

The Chinese star set out from the gun to not only record a hat-trick of victories at the prestigious La Coruna race, after wins in 2012 and 2014 but also had the goal of a personal best and maybe a world record.

 

She set a furious pace right from the start, with 4:17 for the opening lap, then slowed down only slightly to 4:20 for the second and 4:21 for her third circuit; but she then injected a brisker pace in the fourth (4:14) and fifth (4:15) laps which she maintained over the following kilometres to reach the 10km point in 42:39.

 

Liu, perhaps realising that she was a just little outside world record pace and that she would have to speed up if she was to finish inside 1:25, then proceeded to covered several 1km laps between 4:11 and 4:13 to be timed at 1:03:41 at 15km.

 

Her final lap was 4:05 to reduce the world record by the handsome margin of no less than 24 seconds.

 

Looking ahead to August’s IAAF World Championships on home soil in Beijing, Liu will be eager to take an elusive gold medal since she has collected two bronzes in 2009 and 2013, plus a silver medal at the 2011 IAAF World Championships in Daegu.

 

Wang walks to meeting record

 

The men’s race produced another win for China and all the talk would have been of Wang Zhen’s victory in an outstanding 1:18:00, with him taking eight seconds off the meeting record, if his thunder had not been stolen by his compatriot Liu.

 

In a year when the 20km race walk world record has already been broken twice, Wang’s effort in La Coruna might have been in danger of also being overshadowed by the March feats of Yohann Diniz and then Yusuke Diniz but it was still a superb performance.

 

The visiting Chinese party also took a clean sweep of the men’s medals with Wang, the London 2012 Olympic Games bronze medallist, getting the better of the reigning Olympic champion Chen Ding and also Cai Zelin.

 

Right from the start the Chinese trio dictated a brisk pace, lapping in the range of 3:53-3:56 and only Japan’s Isamu Fujisawa, Australia’s Dane Bird-Smith and the local star Miguel Ángel Lopez could live with that kind of pace.

 

Shortly after the sixth kilometre, the in-form Wang managed to break away from the rest of the leading group to go through the halfway point in 39:02 while Chen and Cai were 15 seconds in arrears, and the trio of Fujisawa, Bird-Smith and Lopez reached that point in 39:36

 

The second half witnessed a solo performance by Wang, who strengthened his advantage every 1km lap to build a final winning margin of 44 seconds over Chen, himself a massive one full minute ahead of Cai.

 

The fight for the fourth place went for Lopez, who narrowly beat the Bird-Smith and Fujisawa.

 

Coached by Italian walking guru Sandro Damilano, Wang remains unbeaten so far in 2015 having set a world-leading time of 38:23.73 for the 10,000m event on the track in addition to a 20km effort of 1:19:29 in Beijing to win China’s IAAF World Championships trials.

 

Emeterio Valiente for the IAAF

 

 

Male and female podium of La Coruna