After this weekend-end the world of world walking has changed, but this time the pandemic is not involved.
Since June 6, 2015, when Liu Hong set the world record in La Coruna, women, also following the exclusion of Russia from international competitions, had experienced a season dominated by the bee queen Liu Hong.
Her bridesmaids were alternately Qieyang Shenjie and Lu Xiuzhi.
The 2017 with Liu Hong in pregnancy, saw in London the victory of the new name of Yang Jiahu, which came after a daring competition, which ended with two red cards with a gesture that had made the purists of the specialty wrinkle their noses. It had been a small discordant note that unfortunately was not resolved and worsened over the next two years so much so that Yang Jiayu was disqualified from the Doha World Cup in 2019.
But Saturday was the day of the return match.
The races of the winter walking championships in Huanshan, China did not betray the strong expectations, in particular those of the athlete from Inner Mongolia who started with the goal of setting a new world record.
Great performances, especially in the two 20 km, many personal bests, hard-fought races, but above all a fabulous world record in the 20 km. female.
However, we remind you that in Russia on 10 June 2018 in Cheboksary Yelena Lashanova, just returned from a 4-year disqualification, had walked in 1:23:39 but this performance was never ratified by the Word Athletics due to lack of the necessary requirements for homologation (lack of 3 international judges).
For the occasion, the Saransk athlete had achieved her performance with the following split times:
km. 5 = 20:57
km. 10 = 41:48 (20:51)
km. 15 = 1:02:50 (21:02)
km. 20 = 1:23:39 (20:49)
Yesterday Yang Jiahu improved Liu Hong's record, with a new record that has yet to be ratified but which has all the trappings of regularity as there were 3 international judges and the course had been homologated by an official measurer.
These split times:
km. 5 = 20:54
km. 10 = 41:52 (20:58)
km. 15 = 1:02:44 (20:52)
km. 20 = 1:23:49 (21:05)
As you can see, the difference was found, especially, in the last 5 km. where the Russian athlete finished in 20:49 while the Chinese finished in 21:05.
The new record is the direct consequence of what was observed in December in the Wuzhong multi-day events where the Inner Mongolia athlete demonstrated her excellent condition with three top-level races.
A 15km ended in 1:02.43; a 10 km ended in 41:25 and, finally, another 15 km ended in 1:03:21. All performances that made it necessary to attack the world record at the first opportunity.
Very fast game right away, she always walked on times between 4:10 / 4:14 per km. Accelerating his pace a little between 14 km and the 16 km when Liu Hong (in particular) and Qieyang Shenjie had approached 8" and 11" respectively.
Together with this great result in the same race, the times obtained by the three-time world champion and holder of the previous world record, Liu Hong, who stopped the clocks on a time of 1:24:27, should be noted.
On the occasion of the previous record, Liu Hong, on 6 June 2015 in La Coruña, marched in 1:24:38.
Her passing times had been:
km. 5 = 21:26
km. 10 = 42:39 (21:13)
km. 15 = 1:03:44 (21:05)
km. 20 = 1:24:38 (20:54)
In Huangshan Liu Hong fought to the best of her current ability. She had approached about 14 km. she at the tread and she had even thought of a reunion but then she had to surrender to the overwhelming power of Yang Jiahu.
After nine years, Qieyang Shenjie also established her staff with 1:24:45. The Tibetan had approached her staff on several occasions but she had never been able to do better. On this occasion, although she was not at the best of her abilities (she had an annoying rhinitis in the last week and the day before she was accusing some lines of fever) she has finally managed to do better than the London Olympic competition 2012.
The best recognition of her was, after having seen the whole race, that of having expressed the best technical walk of the first three.
Believe us that going under 1:25:00 and walking like Qiejiang did, is not an everyday thing. Not that the other two broke the rule, but the fluidity and gesture displayed by the Tibetan gave us a demonstration of how well you can walk at high speeds. In a masculine comparison, she reminded us of a certain Jefferson Perez.
The Huangshan race was not only characterized by these three athletes, who are all candidates for the Olympic podium, but also by other performances of absolute value and with a large number of best personal performances.
Lu Xiuzhi (bronze medal in Rio 2016) returned after 4 years to the levels that compete with her, finishing the race in 1:25:51, second absolute time in her career. The finish of the hostess was not very brilliant and was only partially redeemed by a last km. route in 3:59.00.
The young (1998) Yang Liujing (already bronze medal in Doha 2019) also very well reached her best personal performance with a mark of 1:25:59. Personal best also for Ma Zhenxia (1998) in 1:27:46. The young athlete from Shandong wondered too much of her possibilities by staying for 8km. she in the wake of the leading group and moving on to 10 km in 42:30 and then pay the effort with a second part walked in 45:16. By better distributing the race he was in a position to improve, certainly, around 1:26:30.
Personal best also for Ni Yuanyuan (1:28:07); Ma Li (year of birth 2000) in 1:28:33 and for Li Maocuo (1:29:53) specialist of the 50 km. and silver medal over the distance in Doha.
Thelwe athletes under 1:30:00 demonstrate the undisputed absolute value of the Chinese women's walk.
To finish this discussion we invite our readers to look below the updated world list of the top 15 athletes in the 20km.
If we remove the five athletes from Russia (we do not know at the moment if and how many will be accepted as ANA, but suppose perhaps one) we see that among the other ten, eight are from China, one from Spain (Maria Perez) and one from Italy (Eleonora Anna Giorgi).
It would be nice and interesting to discuss the organizational structure of the planet China, the number of annual competitions, the incentives for athletes and coaches, the weight in schools and provinces (our regions), but today we stop here.
This ranking is what we have left of Huangshan 2021, and believe us it is not a little.
A well-known coach, after hearing the news, gave us this answer: "They murdered us!".