Francisco Javier Fernandez leads home the individual and team wins for the hosts Spain (© Getty Images)
The second leg of the 2007 IAAF Race Walking Challenge is set for this weekend (24 / 25 March) in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.
A thoroughly modern city conceived almost entirely as a temple of commerce in China’s bustling Guangdong province, Shenzhen is the gateway city to Hong Kong and is home to much of China’s shipping industry.
This weekend the city welcomes a roster of forty-one international entrants in the men’s and women’s divisions, as well as China’s best race walkers, for the men’s 20km and 50km races and the women’s 20km event.
The men’s and women’s 20km events will be contested on Saturday 24 March, with the men’s race beginning at 7:30 local time and the women’s race at 9:10. The men’s 50km race will be held on Sunday 25 March, starting at 7:30 local time.
MEN
Last year’s Challenge overall title winner, Francisco Javier Fernandez of Spain, along with a host of other top names will make the trip to Shenzhen.
1999 World champion Ilya Markov of Russia, 34, who like Spain’s World Cup winner and double European 20km champion, is coached by the world’s greatest ever walker Robert Korzeniowski, also travels to China. Their many time nemesis, World record holder Jefferson Perez of Ecuador, the reigning two-time World 20km champion makes his season 20km opener.
Italy's 2004 Olympic 20km champion Ivano Brugnetti is another name likely to battle for honours. However, his compatriot the 2005 World 50km bronze medallist Alex Schwazer who was in good form taking the 20km title at last weekend’s Italian Club Walking Championships in Milan, is now said to be ill and so will not race.
Jesus Angel Garcia of Spain, 37, is the best foreign shot for the 50km title. The 1993 World champion is still very much a force in the event. He was second at the European Championships last summer and won the recent national title at 50km in 3:52:22 in Santa Eularia des Riu on 4 March.
The domestic challenge is headed by Han Yucheng. The 28-year-old was fourth (1:18:35) over 20km in last year’s exceptionally high quality Chinese leg of the Challenge. On that occasion it was his compatriot Li Gaobo who won (1:18:17) from Markov (1:18:18) and Fernandez (1:18:33).
This year Han Yucheng goes at the 50km at which distance he is Asian record holder. He will be joined at the longer distance by Yu Chaohong, Zhao Chengliang, and A. Latangadasu
Li Gaobo returns to defend his 20km title, and will have the company of his compatriots Zhu Hongjun, the Area record holder (1:17:41- 2005) and Cui Zhide.
WOMEN
On the women’s side, China’s Liu Hong, 19, who became the World Junior 10,000m Race Walk champion and Asian Games senior 20km gold medallist last year will face off against Jane Saville of Australia, the Olympic bronze medallist, who finished as the third best race walker overall in last year’s IAAF Race Walking Challenge.
Liu and Saville will be joined in the elite women’s field by Australians Cheryl Webb, Claire Woods, Jessica Rottwll and Megan Peters, Pole Sylwia Korzeniowska of Poland, and Fabiola Godinez Perez of Mexico.
Bai Yanmin, 19, who is the world’s fastest ever youth walker at 20km (1:30:44 – 2004), Jiang Jing, the 2004 World Cup silver medallist, and Jiang Qiuyan, the 2005 World Student Games champion, round out the top notch Chinese field in the women’s 20km event.
China has staged successful legs of the IAAF Race Walking Challenge in past years, including 2004’s two-day event in Kunshan, and single-day events in Cixi in 2005 and Yangzhou in 2006.
Shenzhen’s heat and humidity, along with the ever-present smog in southern China from the glut of factories in the region, will be a factor in the races though the athletes may enjoy a slight respite from the heat as scattered rain showers are forecast for both days of the weekend.
Mary Nicole Nazzaro for the IAAF