2015 World Championships in Athletics – Women's 20 kilometres walk

Women's 20 kilometres walk at the 2015 World Championships
Venue	Beijing National Stadium
Dates	28 August
Competitors	49 from 27 nations
Winning time	1:27:45
Medalists
Liu Hong    China   Lü Xiuzhi    China   Lyudmyla Olyanovska    Ukraine
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Events at the 2015 World Championships
Track events
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
400 m	men	women
800 m	men	women
1500 m	men	women
5000 m	men	women
10,000 m	men	women
100 m hurdles		women
110 m hurdles	men
400 m hurdles	men	women
3000 m steeplechase	men	women
4 × 100 m relay	men	women
4 × 400 m relay	men	women
Road events
Marathon	men	women
20 km walk	men	women
50 km walk	men
Field events
High jump	men	women
Pole vault	men	women
Long jump	men	women
Triple jump	men	women
Shot put	men	women
Discus throw	men	women
Hammer throw	men	women
Javelin throw	men	women
Combined events
Heptathlon		women
Decathlon	men
v t e

The women's 20 kilometres race walk at the 2015 World Championships in Athletics was held at the Beijing National Stadium on 28 August.^[1][2]

The defending champion Elena Lashmanova would not be here, while she serves her drug suspension. In fact the entire Russian team did not compete here amid the drug scandal surrounding their coach Viktor Chegin. It looked like world record holder, world leader Liu Hong, walking on home soil was the prohibitive favorite. Liu's one complication was her teammate Xiuzhi Lu. Like in the men's race, the two Chinese walkers took off hard from the start, only Anežka Drahotová tried to go with them. That lasted about 4 km, from that point on the two walkers were out on their own almost tied by a string, swapping the lead occasionally though Lu was setting the pace the majority of the time. They hit 5K in 22:24; 10K in 44:19 (21:55 split) with a 30-second lead and 15K in 1:06:24 (22:05 split). The chase pack was Lyudmyla Olyanovska, Elisa Rigaudo, Eleonora Giorgi and Érica de Sena. de Sena was the first to fall off pace around 12K, both of the Italians were later asked to leave the course. Between 10 and 15K the lead actually shrunk to 20 seconds, but the closing 5K in 21:22 settled it for everyone but the two Chinese walkers. They battled neck and neck until just about the time they re-entered the stadium, when Lu seemed to concede to Liu and walked the remainder on the track in her footsteps. With the domestic crowd going crazy, Lu crossed the finish line virtually in Liu's shadow, the separation of 0.26 seconds giving the closest finish for a race walk in World Athletics Championships history. Because it is a road course, the official times are accurate to only one second so both athlete's times round to the same time. Olyanovska continued to hold on, finishing just 28 seconds back for bronze. The rest of the field finished more than 1:15 behind her.^[3] It was the first gold medal for the home team at these championships.^[4]

Prior to the competition, the records were as follows:^[5]

World record	Liu Hong (CHN)	1:24:38	La Coruña, Spain	6 June 2015
Championship record	Olimpiada Ivanova (RUS)	1:25:41	Helsinki, Finland	7 August 2005
World Leading	Liu Hong (CHN)	1:24:38	La Coruña, Spain	6 June 2015
African Record	Grace Wanjiru (KEN)	1:34:19	Nairobi, Kenya	1 August 2010
Asian Record	Liu Hong (CHN)	1:24:38	La Coruña, Spain	6 June 2015
North, Central American and Caribbean record	Mirna Ortiz (GUA)	1:28:31	Rio Maior, Portugal	6 April 2013
South American Record	Érica de Sena (BRA)	1:29:37	Dudince, Slovakia	21 March 2015
European Record	Elena Lashmanova (RUS)	1:25:02	London, Great Britain	11 August 2012
Oceanian record	Jane Saville (AUS)	1:27:44	Naumburg, Germany	2 May 2004

All times are local times (UTC+8)

The race was started at 08:30.^[7]

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	Liu Hong	China (CHN)	1:27:45
	Lü Xiuzhi	China (CHN)	1:27:45
	Lyudmyla Olyanovska	Ukraine (UKR)	1:28:13
4	Ana Cabecinha	Portugal (POR)	1:29:29
5	Antonella Palmisano	Italy (ITA)	1:29:34
6	Érica de Sena	Brazil (BRA)	1:30:06
7	Brigita Virbalytė	Lithuania (LTU)	1:30:20	PB
8	Anežka Drahotová	Czech Republic (CZE)	1:30:32
9	Alejandra Ortega	Mexico (MEX)	1:31:04	PB
10	María José Poves	Spain (ESP)	1:31:06	SB
11	Nadiya Borovska	Ukraine (UKR)	1:31:18
12	Mirna Ortiz	Guatemala (GUA)	1:31:32
13	Rachel Seaman	Canada (CAN)	1:31:39
14	Raquel González	Spain (ESP)	1:32:00
15	Viktória Madarász	Hungary (HUN)	1:32:01
16	Paola Pérez	Ecuador (ECU)	1:32:12
17	Nie Jingjing	China (CHN)	1:32:40
18	Alana Barber	New Zealand (NZL)	1:33:20	NR
19	Sandra Arenas	Colombia (COL)	1:33:24
20	Maria Michta-Coffey	United States (USA)	1:33:24
21	Vera Santos	Portugal (POR)	1:34:01
22	Wendy Cornejo	Bolivia (BOL)	1:34:12	PB
23	Inês Henriques	Portugal (POR)	1:34:47
24	Claudia Ștef	Romania (ROM)	1:34:51
25	Kumiko Okada	Japan (JPN)	1:34:56
26	Miranda Melville	United States (USA)	1:35:19
27	Jeon Yeong-eun	South Korea (KOR)	1:35:48
28	Maritza Poncio	Guatemala (GUA)	1:35:53
29	Cisiane Lopes	Brazil (BRA)	1:36:06
30	Mária Czaková	Slovakia (SVK)	1:36:08
31	Émilie Menuet	France (FRA)	1:36:17
32	Laura García-Caro	Spain (ESP)	1:36:22
33	Laura Polli	Switzerland (SUI)	1:36:26	SB
34	Rachel Tallent	Australia (AUS)	1:36:27
35	Lee Jeong-eun	South Korea (KOR)	1:36:52
36	Lucie Pelantová	Czech Republic (CZE)	1:38:34
37	Khushbir Kaur	India (IND)	1:38:53
38	Agnieszka Dygacz	Poland (POL)	1:39:06
39	Mayra Herrera	Guatemala (GUA)	1:39:23
40	Marie Polli	Switzerland (SUI)	1:39:49
41	Mária Gáliková	Slovakia (SVK)	1:40:06
42	Olena Shumkina	Ukraine (UKR)	1:41:30
	Beki Smith	Australia (AUS)	DQ
	Claudia Balderrama	Bolivia (BOL)	DQ
	Sapana Sapana	India (IND)	DQ
	Eleonora Giorgi	Italy (ITA)	DQ
	Elisa Rigaudo	Italy (ITA)	DQ
	Neringa Aidietytė	Lithuania (LTU)	DQ
	Kimberly García	Peru (PER)	DNF
	Kelly Ruddick	Australia (AUS)	DNS