Opole (POL), a city located in southern Poland on the Oder River, hosted the first edition of the National 35km Walking Championship of Poland.
Opole, which has almost 130,000 inhabitants, is located at an altitude of 176m above sea level.
The race took place on a 1,500m course for a total of 23 laps plus a 500m link, all in the area called "Bolko Island"
The competition was classified as Bronze Level on the World Race Walking Tour.
Unfortunately, given the concomitance of competitions in Europe, participation was limited.
35km women
In the women's competition, only two athletes showed up at the start.
Nevertheless Katarzyna Zdziebło achieved an excellent result by signing the new national record of Poland in 2:49:37 (the previous one still belonged to Zdziebło - 2:50:54 - who had obtained it in Ivano-Franskivk, UKR on 24.10.2021 .
The race took place on a 1,500m course (loop) for a total of 23 laps plus a slight 500m link.
These are the split times every 5 laps (7.5km).
- 5 laps in 39:40
- 10 laps in 1:15:46 (36:06)
- 15 laps in 1:52:21 (36:41)
- 20 laps in 2:28:23 (36:02)
- last 3 laps in 21:14
Second place to Agnieszka Ellward who remained next to the winner for only three laps (4.5km) who finished the race with a time of 3:13:39.
35km men
During the first part of the race, Rafał Augustyn was the early lead together with Dawid Tomala and Arthur Brzozowski.
On the fourth lap, however, there is already in the lead Brzozowski and Tomala (28:42) while Augustyn is more detached (28:48).
Artur Brzozowski then set the pace with these split times every 5km. (7.5km).
- 5 laps in 35:11
After lap 9 Brzozowski was the leader of the competition alone, behind him was Dawid Tomala, struggling not only with the other rivals, but also with a pain in his knee.
- 10 laps in 1:07:52 (32:41)
- 15 laps in 1:40:45 (32:53)
- 20 laps in 2:15:14 (34:29)
- last 3 laps in 22:08
Second place went to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion Dawid Tomala in the 50km with a time of 2:37:23
The bronze medal was won by Rafał Augustyn in 2:39:27