The 2017 performances obtained by Russian Sergey Shirobokov (ANA) in Sochi, and then in London on 20 km road walk have led us to reflect on the potential of individual nations in U23 category.
We chose the U23 because they should represent the future potential of a Country in view of the next Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
In the first fifty U23 athletes of 20km road walk men, 26 belong to China, 9 belong to Russia, and 8 belong to Japan. Next are Germany, Spain, Mexico, Great Britain, France, Peru and Turkey.
It is clear that quantitative choice unquestionably privileges China, but it will also be from a qualitative point of view ?
To establish it, we chose the top five athletes of the three major countries as their benchmark, taking their best annual performance of 2017 and transferring it to scoring according to current tables in place.
We start from Russia, boasting the world leader of the U23 in 2017, Serghey Shirobokov, who has won world silver in London.
Russia
| Result | Pos | Athlete | YoB | Nation | Venue | Date | Points |
| | | | | | | | |
| 1:18:25 | 1. | Sergey SHIROBOKOV | 99 | RUS | Sochi (RUS) | 18.02 | 1225 |
| 1:20:57 | 13. | Aleksey SHEVCHUK | 97 | RUS | Sochi (RUS) | 18.02 | 1170 |
| 1:21:32 | 16. | Timofey PARKAYEV | 97 | RUS | Sochi (RUS) | 18.02 | 1158 |
| 1:21:48 | 20. | Vasiliy MIZINOV | 97 | RUS | Cheboksary (RUS) | 10.06 | 1152 |
| 1:22:09 | 28. | Vladislav SARAYKIN | 97 | RUS | Sochi (RUS) | 18.02 | 1145 |
| | | Total points on 5 performances | | | | | 5750 |
| | | Average of 5 performances | | | | | 1150 |
China
| Result | Pos. | Athlete | YoB | Nation | Venue | Date | Points |
| | | | | | | | |
| 1:19:12 | 3. | Xiangqian JIN | 97 | CHN | Huangshan (CHN) | 04.03 | 1208 |
| 1:19:23 | 4. | Rui WANG | 96 | CHN | Huangshan (CHN) | 04.03 | 1204 |
| 1:20:25 | 7. | Song SUN | 96 | CHN | Huangshan (CHN) | 04.03 | 1182 |
| 1:20:52 | 11. | Qingcun ZENG | 95 | CHN | Huangshan (CHN) | 04.03 | 1172 |
| 1:20:55 | 12. | Heng ZHONG | 95 | CHN | Huangshan (CHN) | 04.03 | 1171 |
| | | Total points on 5 performances | | | | | 5937 |
| | | Average of 5 performances | | | | | 1187 |
Japan
| Result | Pos. | Athlete | Yob | Nation | Venue | Date | Points |
| | | | | | | | |
| 1:19:03 | 2. | Toshikazu YAMANISHI | 96 | JPN | Kobe (JPN) | 19.02 | 1212 |
| 1:19:40 | 5. | Daisuke MATSUNAGA | 95 | JPN | Nomi (JPN) | 19.03 | 1198 |
| 1:20:04 | 6. | Tomohiro NODA | 95 | JPN | Nomi (JPN) | 19.03 | 1189 |
| 1:20:45 | 9. | Fumitaka OIKAWA | 95 | JPN | Kobe (JPN) | 19.02 | 1175 |
| 1:20:48 | 10. | Kouki IKEDA | 95 | JPN | Takahata (JPN) | 22.10 | 1174 |
| | | Total points on 5 performances | | | | | 5948 |
| | | Average of 5 performances | | | | | 1190 |
So Japan is the leading Country in the U23 men 20km road walk.
But considering the fact that the ranking is "very short", we wanted to re-launch it on three athletes.
Again, the result would not change.
| Place | Nation | Total Points | Average per athlete |
| | | | |
| 1 | Japan | 3599 | 1200 |
| 2 | China | 3594 | 1198 |
| 3 | Russia | 3553 | 1184 |