Tatyana Mineeva may be little-known outside her native Russia, but after she beat the rest of the world’s top juniors in the women’s 10km walk, that could be about the change.

The 17-year-old waited until 11 laps into the race before moving away from the lead group and picking up the pace quite dramatically.

Mineeva set a Championship record of 43:24.72, just 13 seconds off the World Junior record, although with more even pacing, she would surely have been very close to that.

Mineeva was content to sit in early on with a pack which consisted of compatriot Elmira Alembekova, China’s Yanfei Li, Australia’s Jess Rothwell and Romania’s Anamaria Greceanu.

However, after relatively sedate opening kilometres of 4:20, 4:21 and 4:28, Mineeva stretched away with a 4:15, 4:07 and 4:17. She could not maintain that pace and dropped to 4:20, 4:26 and 4:22.

With four laps to go, Alembekova appeared to be gaining, but then she received a yellow card and it was clear shortly after that she had left her charge too late. The Russian 10km road champion held on, despite a last kilometre of 4:27, to clock one of the all-time top ten fastest track time by a junior in history.

Mineeva, who hails from Saransk in Western Russia, explained she came into the race with an injury and had not entertained the thought of breaking the 2005 World Junior record of 43:11.34, belonging to her fellow Russian Vera Sokolova.

“I had an injury to my leg from before and that’s why I came here just to go for medals and not records as I realised it would not be possible,” she said.
However, the athlete who started race walking at age 14 added: “This win was a dream for me. I believed in God and in my coach and hoped I could achieve it.”

Alembekova clocked 43:45.16 to set a PB, in common with the first six athletes.

Yanfei Li set a Chinese record of 44:24.10 for third, while Australia’s Jess Rothwell was next with an Oceania record of 44:44.22.

Paul Halford for the IAAF