German Christopher Linke won twice in Podebrady last year and was understandably one of the main favourites in the men's 20km while the main favourites in the women's 20km would have to have been Czech Anezka Drahotova and Italian Eleonora Giorgi.
In the women's 20km, Italian Eleonora Anna Giorgi took off fast, with the Czech Anežka Drahotová the only one to keep pace with her. But Georgi soon cleared out, going on to win in a meet record of 1:28:49. Lithuanian Brigitta Varbalité-Dimšiene came through strongly to finish second with 1:31:05, ahead of Italian Valentina Trapletti (1:31:36). Drahotová eventually finished in fifth place (1:32:220 to claim her fourth Czech 20km championship win.
The men's race saw a leading group of three for most of the race, with Germany's Christopher Linke and Mexicans Horacio Nava and Ricardo Ortiz out in front. It was not until the start of the last lap that Linke out the pedal down, clearing out on his two rivals to claim his third victory in this even (1:21:55). Nava took silver with 1:22:13, ahead of Ortiz with 1:22:28. The best Czech competitor was Lukas Gdula, as expected, at 32nd place at 1:31:04, taking the Czech title for a fourth time.
The U20 Women's 10km saw German favourite Julia Richter fade to third (50:35) while Irish walker Orla O'Connor won with a big PB of 49:23, ahead of Yekaterina Slykovova (KAZ) with 50:15.
The U20 Men's 20km saw a great battle between favourites David Kuster (FRA) and Yeóryios Tzatsimakis (GRE) who broke away from the rest of the field just after the start. Tzatsimakis managed to break away around the 7km mark, no doubt helped by the fact that Kuster had 2 red cards by this time. The young Greek walker went on to win with a PB 41:45, ahead of David Koster (42:07) and Lukasz Niedzialek of Poland (42:14).