08/11/2019   Evolution of the average speed of the best athlete and the top 10 athletes in the 50km men: "Italy vs World"






Also this year Marcia dal Mondo wanted to enrich its statistical analyzes by adding the following interesting comparisons:

 
a) 50 km men: the speed of the top athlete in Italy compared to that of the top athlete in the World
 
b) 50 km men: the average speed of the first 10 athletes in Italy compared with that of the first 10 athletes in the World
 
In 2018 and earlier this average speed had been compared considering the top 10 athletes of Italy, against the top 20 athletes in the world.
We were afraid of not having 20 athletes for all race walk events in order to have a homogeneous average, or to have but of a strongly lower level than the first 10 so that the same average was distorted in negative by their performances.
For this reason we decided in 2019 to rewrite the world averages considering the first 10 athletes and finally we have limited the comparison to the last 10 years.
We will behave similarly also in the future.
 
The chart that we propose to our readers is quite simple in its reading, but some more precise informations are needed.
 
 
 
Italy best vs World best
 

The trend of the speed chart of the "best world athlete" in the 50km and that of the "best Italian athlete" in the decade 2010 - 2019 is almost parallel.
The variation between the two values ​​ranges from a minimum of -0.42 (in 2016) to a maximum of -0.80 (in 2014).
It should be remembered that 2014 was the year in which Yohann Diniz (FRA) set the world record on the distance (2014: 3:22:33). Subsequently in 2017 with the victory at the World Championships in London (2017: 3:33:12) Diniz established the second best all-time world performance.
Between 2012 and 2017 in Italy the best performer was Marco De Luca who obtained the personal best in Rome (3:44:47 - 13,35 km/hr) in what was the season with the smallest difference compared to at the world top.
In the last three years the average speed in the 50km of Italy's best performer has returned to be lower by more than 0.70 km/hr compared to that of the "best world performer".
 
In this table we summarize the differences found in the decade of the average speed of the best athlete on the 20km.

 

 

Anno

World 

Top speed

Italy

Top speed

Difference

in km/hr

       
2010 13,59 13,12 - 0,47
       
2011 13,71 13,06 - 0,65
       
2012 13,89 13,20 - 0,69
       
2013 13,77 13,15 - 0,62
       
2014 14,11 13,31 - 0,80
       
2015 13,98 13,25 - 0,73
       
2016 13,77 13,35 - 0,42
       
2017 14,07 13,33 - 0,74
       
2018 13,65 12,88 - 0,77
       
2019 13,84 13,13 - 0,71

 

 

 

Average speed top 10 athletes of Italy vs average speed top 10 athletes of  World

 

 

In this table we summarize the differences found in the decade of the average speeds of the first 10 athletes on the 20km.

 

 

 

Anno

World average

top 10 speed

Italy average

top 10 speed

Difference

in km/hr

       
2010 13,14 12,04 - 1,10
       
2011 13,38 12,27 - 1,11
       
2012 13,54 12,08 - 1,46
       
2013 13,41 12,70 - 0,70
       
2014 13,48 12,14 - 1,34
       
2015 13,35 12,48 - 0,87
       
2016 13,44 11,95 - 1,49
       
2017 13,39 12,46 - 0,93
       
2018 13,35 12,18 - 1,17
       
2019 13,65 12,62 - 1,03

 

 

If we focus on the average speeds obtained by the top 10 walkers in Italy (or less then 10) in the 50km and compare them with those of the top 10 in the World we will see that the differential is even more pitiless.

In the last four years (from when in 2016 it reached its decade negative peak: -1.49 km/hr) only in 2017 it stood at a -0.93 km/hr, while it returned to negative growth in 2018.
This year the result of Tilburg (NED) obtained by Stefano Chiesa (3:48:25 which corresponds to an average speed of 13,65 km/hr) gives a glimpse of some light, but the way for Italy to competing on equal terms on 50km with Japan and China (and a little less with the European Poland, Ukraine and Belarus) is still quite long.