The last 25 years in the history of race walk saw a large number of athletes successfully experimenting in the 18th major edition events (6 Olympic Games and 12 World Championships) that took place at the 20 km male level.
When he participated in Barcelona 1992 with the race number 337 a young (born on July 1, 1974) athlete from Ecuador that same year in Seoul had won the U20 World Championship on 10,000 track walk was unknownd.
He could not therefore be regarded as a stranger, this eighteen-year-old young man who faced international limelight and whose appearance lasted less than 5km: just enough time to understand what could mean walk with the monsters at that time Daniel Plaza (ESP), Guillaume Leblanc (CAN ), Giovanni De Benedictis (ITA), Maurizio Damilano (ITA), Valenti Massana (ESP) and Rober Korzenioksi (POL), and then stop.
Just the time he had seen showing in front of his shoulders a white palette (then they were of that color and not yellow) for loss of contact, and then stopped: we would have spoken after four years in Atlanta (USA) for the presentations to the race walking world.
Four years later !
As outsiders (can we define "unknown" an athlete who already had a bronze and a gold at the World Championships U20 in his palmares ?) but certainly not favored (we like to call him in that way: outsieder) Jefferson Perez began the rewriting of the story of race walk is international levet of results, but also, and above all, in the matter of technical style.
A gold and an Olympic silver, from which the recent events we believe leave him a nasty taste in the mouth, but above all the incredible series of three golds and a silver the World Cup (Gold: Podebrady 1997, Torino 2002 , Naumburg 2004 - Silver: La Coruna 2006) overtaken by the most incredible series at the 5 World Championships in which he participated: Sevilla 1999: 2nd, Edmonton 2001: 8th, Paris 2003, Helsinki 2005 and Osaka 2007 always victorious. He is a monument in the international race walk. Among other things, the time marked in Paris (1:17:21) remains for the record of the World Championships.
Since the August 23rd, 2003 when the Paris victory also led to the world record, only four athletes did better than him: two performances never ratified either because of lack of anti-doping or lack of international judges judging: those of Vladimir Kanaykin (RUS) - 1:17:16 and Sergey Morozov (RUS) - 1:16:43 and two recognized those of Yohann Diniz records (FRA) - 1:17:02 and Yusuke Suzuki (JPN) - 1:16:36.
Suzuki is struggling with a difficult injury, Diniz decides to play his cards on the 50km and then scroll down the "all time" list of 20km.
Between the time of 1:17:22 and 1:17:53 we find 10 athletes, none of whom will be present in London for various reasons (end of career, doping, technical choice) and we find then with 1:17:54 he, World Weader 2017, Wang Kaihua with time of 1:17:54 obtained in Huangshan (CH) on March 4, 2017.
The following table shows (net of Russians and not inscribed at 20km) participants who have a performance less than 1:20:00.
| Result | Pos | Athete | YoB | Nation | Place | Venue | Date |
| | | | | | | | |
| 1:17:54 | 1. | Kaihua WANG | 94 | CHN | 1. | Huangshan (CHN) | 04.03 |
| 1:18:18 | 2. | Eiki TAKAHASHI | 92 | JPN | 1. | Kobe (JPN) | 19.02 |
| 1:18:23 | 3. | Isamu FUJISAWA | 87 | JPN | 2. | Kobe (JPN) | 19.02 |
| 1:18:25 | 4. | Sergey SHIROBOKOV | 99 | RUS | 1. | Sochi (RUS) | 18.02 |
| 1:18:59 | 5. | Christopher LINKE | 88 | GER | 1. | Poděbrady (CZE) | 08.04 |
| 1:19:12 | 6. | Xiangqian JIN | 97 | CHN | 2. | Huangshan (CHN) | 04.03 |
| 1:19:23 | 7. | Rui WANG | 96 | CHN | 3. | Huangshan (CHN) | 04.03 |
| 1:19:37 | 8. | Dane BIRD-SMITH | 92 | AUS | 1. | Adelaide (AUS) | 19.02 |
| 1:19:40 | 9. | Daisuke MATSUNAGA | 95 | JPN | 1. | Nomi (JPN) | 19.03 |
| 1:19:50 | 10. | Hyun-Sub KIM | 85 | KOR | 2. | Nomi (JPN) | 19.03 |
| 1:19:57 | 11. | Alvaro MARTIN | 94 | ESP | 1. | La Coruna (ESP) | 03.06 |
The logic in the fight for medals (four names) would say Christopher Linke, Wang Kaihua, Eiki Takahashi, and Dane Bird-Smith.
But the foolishness of the gambler, sometime insane drive us to say Rui Wang, Sergey Shirobokov, Daisuke Matsunaga, Eider Arevalo.
We are animated by a great game of chanche for the latter three and we supprting them.
If we would lost, please don't tell us you are too much foolish, and wait some year and continue in reading us.
Perhaps it would not have been madness early in the morning on July 26. 1996 in that of Atlanta to pronounce the winner who then wrote the 20km history of race walk ?