Huangshan, China, March 20, 2021: Yang Jiayu chopped 49 seconds off the world record to win the women’s 20km race walk in 1 hour, 23 minutes and 49 seconds at the Chinese Race Walking Championships in Huangshan on Saturday, March 20, World Athletics reports.
The 2017 world champion finished comfortably ahead of Olympic champion Liu Hong, whose 1:24:27 runner-up clocking was also inside the previous world record.
World silver medallist Qieyang Shenjie was third in a Personal Best of 1:24:45. It’s the first 20km race in which more than one woman has finished inside 1:25.
On a landmark day for Chinese race walking, Wang Kaihua won the men’s 20km event in a national record of 1:16:54, a performance that moves the 27-year-old athlete to third on the world all-time list, just 18 seconds shy of the world record.
Yang, 25, told Xinhua News: “My goal for the race was to break the world record. I walked in a very fast pace at the early stages. Then my coach told me to slow down a little bit and stay in a relatively comfortable pace. The last three kilometres was the most difficult part which was a challenge for my body.”
Her next goal, she added, is to prove herself at her first Olympic Games, in Tokyo this summer.