Number of participants and judges
Rarely outside of China (where the Challenge events are combined with a Chinese national race that has even higher numbers than those seen this weekend) we have seen Challenge races with these presences of athletes.
Frankly we have to say that it is difficult to reconcile a competition with over 200 athletes at the start with a panel of only five judges over a course of 1,000m.
The organizers have therefore rightly modified the time by ending the women's race before giving the men's start.
Other they could not do.
The judges judged a race to be similar to a World Team Championship which usually presents numbers like these at the start, with the difference that in the World Team Championship the judges are 8 and the course is 2,000m.
All people who knows about race walk have clear that at higher speeds correspond for the judges greater difficulties to perceive the phase of flight (no contact).
There are no alternatives at the moment: someone sees the flight phase, someone sees it sometimes and sometimes not, someone does not see it and therefore accepts the advancing pace.
We all know that this can create some imbalance, but there is no need to cry shame for it.
We expect the development of the Race Walking Electronic Control System (i.e, the electronic chip insole technology) linked to the variation of future distances, and this element of potential imbalance should definitely control itself.
Those who have indicated a low number of disqualifications with respect to this number of participants should look to the future with positive eyes.
Being pessimistic about the present is useless.
Let us remember that the same thing happened at the dawn of the "Penalty Rule" which is now accepted by everyone and is an element of self-control. This is also why the disqualifications are decreasing.
We must, however, note the most important impact of marketing points of view: that of an enthusiastic public that has seen men and women battle for up to the last meter for as many as 40 laps.
If race walking is to be publicized, the "format" presented in La Coruna was a success.
If we analyze the pros and cons, at least for the writer, the pros are by far the best winners.
Foto di Dukho Cho - KOR
The surprises
Women
Undoubtedly in women the surprise of the day was the result of Glenda Morejon (ECU). The nineteen-year-old from Ecuador has established a performance that is the best all-time world result of the U20 category.
Mark: 10 for the management of the race, the victory and the result, which turns into first-class honours for having obtained it at the first 20km of her career and above all for having re-written the history of the 20km women U20 all time.
Men
There are two surprises of the day.
The first Perseus Karlstrom (SWE) capable, just on the day when he loses the World and European seasonal unbeaten record on the 20km, to beat his National Record of Sweden.
Karlstrom with the victory in Alytus (LTU) in 1:19:54 had just updated it on May 19, 2019.
Now 20 days later he updates it again to 1:18:07 (- 1:47).
Mark: 8.5
The second Massimo Stano (ITA).
The Italian athlete suillyshallied in the pre-race with friends on the possibility of a time between 1:19:30 and 1:19:59 as his goal was that of a performance under 1:20:00 which however would have represented a broke of the personal best of 0:52.
In post race he said that after the first km he had felt something different inside himself and understood that it was his day, and therefore despite his coach shouting to him that the long race, he had decided not to let two Japanese go too far.
The result is today an Italian record for the IAAF and an Italian "almost record" for the Fidal statistics in which it is still recognized the 1:17:30 of Alex Schwazer canceled instead by the IAAF.
The splendid improvement of 3:06 remains, however, compared to the presiding personal best of 1:20:45 obtained in Berlin on Aug. 18, 2018.
Mark: 9,5 (10 could be obtained only with the victory).