The men's

20 kilometres walk The 20 kilometre race walk is an Olympic Games, Olympic athletics (sport), athletics event that is competed by both men and women. The racewalking event is competed as a road race. Athletes must always keep in contact with the ground and the supp ...

at the

2015 World Championships in Athletics The 2015 IAAF World Championships ( zh, 第十五届世界田径锦标赛), the fifteenth edition of the IAAF World Championships, were held from 22 to 30 August at the National Stadium in Beijing, China. Forty-three nations won medals, 144 of ...

was held at the

Beijing National Stadium The National Stadium (), also known as the Bird's Nest (), is an 80,000-capacity stadium in Beijing. The stadium was jointly designed by architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron from Basel-based architecture team Herzog & de Meuron, p ...

on 23 August.

Summary

From the gun, the three Chinese athletes made it clear they were going to make an effort to take this home race. The effort almost worked, as the group ultimately led by Olympic bronze medalist Wang Zhen held the lead until the bell. At almost that moment, returning bronze medalist Miguel Ángel López had finally worked his way back to the lead. The strain of leading showed on Wang's face as Lopez cruised past. Lopez built upon that lead for the final lap and route back into the stadium. Canadian

Benjamin Thorne Benjamin Gary Thorne (born 19 March 1993 in Kitimat) is a Canadian athlete specialising in the race walking Racewalking, or race walking, is a long-distance discipline within the sport of athletics. Although a foot race, it is different from r ...

set the Canadian record on his way to the bronze medal in a national record time. A deeper story might be in who was not here. After years of the

Viktor Chegin Viktor Mikhailovich Chegin (russian: Виктор Михайлович Чёгин; born 3 February 1962 in Bersenevka, Lyambirsky District) is a banned Russian racewalking coach. He was responsible for training all three athletes who swept the med ...

drug related cheating scandal, no Russian athlete entered the race, ending their dominance of world podiums. Recent world record setting Yusuke Suzuki also dropped out near the half way mark with a hip injury.

Andrés Chocho Cristian Andrés Chocho León (born 4 November 1983) is an Ecuadorian race walker who competes in both the 20 km and 50 km walk events. He is the South American record holder in the 50 km (3:49:32 hours) and 20,000 metres ( ...

was making an effort to challenge the leaders late into the race, but instead was invited to leave the course with a red paddle.

Records

Prior to the competition, the records were as follows:

Qualification standards

Schedule

Results

The race was started at 08:30.Final results
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2015 World Championships in Athletics - Men's 20 kilometres walk

Racewalking at the World Athletics Championships