Tokyo : Antonella Palmisano beat the Chinese favourites in the women’s 20 kilometres race walk on her 30th birthday to get a fourth athletics gold for Italy at the Tokyo Olympics, after Poland’s Dawid Tomala had won the men’s 50km earlier Friday.
Palmisano broke what was left of a leader group with 4km left on the loop course in Sapporo to get gold after missing out in fourth at Rio 2016 and claiming world championship bronze in 2017d, said dpa international.
She clocked 1 hour 29 minutes 12 seconds at Sapporo Odori Park, with Colombia’s Sandra Lorena Arenas getting silver 25 seconds back.
China only managed a bronze, thanks to a strong finish from 2016 winner and three-time world champion Liu Hong, 45 seconds off the pace.
Palmisano got the first ever women’s walk gold for Italy, a day after compatriot Massimo Stano had won the men’s 20km. The double race walk success comes after a golden Sunday for Italy from Lamont Marcell Jacobs in the 100m and Gianmarco Tamberi with shared high jump gold.
“Today is my day. A perfect way to celebrate my birthday,” Palmisano said.
“Massimo’s gold medal gave me a lot of extra power. He is my teammate and we are part of the same training group. In the countdown to the Olympics we both believed very much we could do it.”
Earlier, Tomala emulated iconic countryman Robert Korzeniowski with 50km gold in only his second attempt at the distance, breaking away at 30km and crossing the line with a Polish flag in 3:50:08 hours.
Germany’s Jonathan Hilbert, 26, took silver in his Olympic debut, 36 seconds behind Tomala. Canada’s Evan Dunfee stole bronze from Spain’s Marc Tur in the final metres.
“It was an amazing day for me,” said Tomala. “I can’t believe it. I work for it my whole life since I was 15 when I thought for the first time during training I would like to be a gold medallist.
“This was only the second 50km in my life and I win it. It is crazy, right?”
Tomala is the last major event 50km winner as from next year’s worlds onwards the distance is reduced to 35km, for men and women.
The races were held some 700km away from the host city of Tokyo in a bid to avoid excruciating temperatures but despite this walkers still ended up competing in heat above 30 degrees Celsius.
Other athletics finals later Friday in Tokyo are the women’s javelin, 400m, 1,500m and 4x100m relay, and the men’s 5,000m and 4x100m relay.
