Aleksey Voyevodin (RUS) celebrates winning the 50km race in Naumburg (© Getty Images)
MonteCarloThe 22nd edition of the IAAF World Race Walking Cup which takes place this year in La Coruña, Spain, is now only a month away.
The two-day competition - Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 May - offers three senior and two junior races on the road, with a record number of preliminary entries received. The Final Entry deadline is 1 May 2006.
In 2006, with no World Championships in Athletics or Olympic Games titles to be contested, the World Race Walking Cup takes on an added significance, and will mark the conclusion of the 2006 IAAF Race Walking Challenge.
In the men’s division in La Coruña, we have the chance that Cup history will be carved out in both the 20km and 50km races, as respectively Jefferson Perez of Ecuador and Russia’s Aleksey Voyevodin will be aiming at their third consecutive World Cup victories.
Perez, the World record holder for 20km is of course already a three-time winner of the Cup (1997, 2002, 2004) but has a chance to take his third consecutive 20km title after victories in the last two editions in Turin, Italy, and Naumburg, Germany. Another triumph would arguably secure the reigning double World champion and 1996 Olympic gold medallist the unofficial mantle of the greatest ever 20km competitor.
At the 50km distance, there has already been one three-time consecutive World Cup winner, 1968 Olympic champion Christoph Höhne of the former GDR who won in 1965, 67, and 70. Another three-time victor, though not in successive Cups, was Raul Gonzalez of Mexico (1977, 81, 83), who also took the Olympic title at 50km and the silver medal at 20km in 1984.
However, in what is one of the most gruelling disciplines in the athletics firmament, if Aleksey Voyevodin, the reigning World silver and Olympic bronze medallist, can secure a successive hat trick of three wins, his achievement will be another notable milestone in World Race Walking Cup history.
In the women’s 20km, a new champion will be crowned, as the World Cup winner last time in Naumburg, Yelena Nikolayeva of Russia, who is now 40, is not in the Russian team selection. The 1996 Olympic and 2003 World champion has not raced since her ‘did not finish’ at the 2005 World Championships last summer.
Timetable
(all times + 2hrs GMT)
Saturday 13 May:
16:30 20K Women
18:30 20K Men
20:20 10K Junior Men
Sunday 14 May:
08:00 50k Men
13:00 10K Junior Women
Chris Turner for the IAAF
