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Athletics at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Men's 50 kilometres walk

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Men's 50 kilometres walk
at the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad
Olympic Athletics
VenueAthens Olympic Stadium
Dates27 August
Competitors54 from 29 nations
Winning time3:38:46
Medalists
1st place, gold medalist(s) Robert Korzeniowski  Poland
2nd place, silver medalist(s) Denis Nizhegorodov  Russia
3rd place, bronze medalist(s) Aleksey Voyevodin  Russia
← 2000
2008 →

The men's 50 kilometres race walk at the 2004 Summer Olympics as part of the athletics program was held through the streets of Athens with the start and finish at the Athens Olympic Stadium on August 27.[1][2]

The race had started in the virtually empty Olympic Stadium with fifty-four walkers lining up the field. The Chinese trio of Han Yucheng, Yu Chaohong, and Alatan Gadasu hurtled away from the pack to take the front as they left the stadium. In the early laps, Han made a tactical move to continuously lead the Chinese walkers within five minutes, but he received his first of three warnings, fell off back to the pack, and was later disqualified after the red paddle. Ten minutes into the race, the Chinese duo were soon joined by four other walkers, Russia's world record holder Denis Nizhegorodov and his teammate Aleksey Voyevodin, 20 km bronze medalist Nathan Deakes of Australia, and defending Olympic champion Robert Korzeniowski.

Between 10 and 30k, Nizhegorodov and Korzeniowski moved to the front of the pack and stayed abreast each other through most of the race. At the halfway point, the leading group had been whittled down to four. Korzeniowski was still in the lead with the Russian duo and Deakes attempting to overtake him. While Nizhegorodov and Voyevodin created a gap as they separated from the group to gain a thirty second advantage, it came down to a chase between Korzeniowski and Deakes to take the lead with only one hour to go. Deakes was eventually disqualified after his third warning with the red card, and Korzeniowski steadily broke away from the field to own the remaining third of the race.

At around 35k, Korzeniowski had commanded a 30 second lead over the weary Nizhegorodov and a further 22 seconds over Yu Chaohong. Walking tirelessly in fourth, Voyevodin managed to bridge back to the pack and launched a charge to strengthen his pace closely behind Yu.

Coming through the 45k mark and into the Olympic Stadium, Korzeniowski increased his lead by fifteen seconds ahead of the world record holder before storming his way at the final turn to cross the finish line for the last time in his competitive career. With a historic win, he added a fourth gold medal to his Olympic tally in 3:38:46.[3]

Five minutes behind Korzeniowski, Nizhegorodov appeared unstable on the home stretch, but had accumulated much ground to finish strong with a silver medal, before collapsing to the track in exhaustion. Meanwhile, his fast-charging teammate Voyevodin surpassed the confident Yu just outside the stadium to claim the bronze with a tremendous finish, edging the Chinese off the podium by eleven seconds.[3][4][5]

Records

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Prior to the competition, the existing World and Olympic records were as follows.

World record  Denis Nizhegorodov (RUS) 3:35:29 Cheboksary, Russia 13 June 2004
Olympic record  Vyacheslav Ivanenko (URS) 3:38:29 Seoul, South Korea 30 September 1988

No new records were set during the competition.

Qualification

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The qualification period for athletics was 1 January 2003 to 9 August 2004. For the men's 20 kilometres race walk, each National Olympic Committee was permitted to enter up to three athletes that had run the race in 4:00:00 or faster during the qualification period. If an NOC had no athletes that qualified under that standard, one athlete that had run the race in 4:07:00 or faster could be entered.

Schedule

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All times are Greece Standard Time (UTC+2)

Date Time Round
Friday, 27 August 2004 07:00 Final

Results

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Rank Name Nationality Result Notes
1st place, gold medalist(s) Robert Korzeniowski  Poland 3:38:46
2nd place, silver medalist(s) Denis Nizhegorodov  Russia 3:42:50
3rd place, bronze medalist(s) Aleksey Voyevodin  Russia 3:43:34
4 Yu Chaohong  China 3:43:45
5 Jesús Ángel García  Spain 3:44:42 SB
6 Roman Magdziarczyk  Poland 3:48:11
7 Grzegorz Sudoł  Poland 3:49:09 PB
8 Santiago Pérez  Spain 3:49:48 SB
9 Yuriy Andronov  Russia 3:50:28
10 Alatan Gadasu  China 3:51:55
11 Aigars Fadejevs  Latvia 3:52:52
12 Jefferson Pérez  Ecuador 3:53:04 NR
13 Trond Nymark  Norway 3:53:20 SB
14 Peter Korčok  Slovakia 3:54:22
15 Miguel Rodríguez  Mexico 3:55:43
16 Yuki Yamazaki  Japan 3:57:00
17 Germán Sánchez  Mexico 3:58:33
18 Miloš Bátovský  Slovakia 3:59:11
19 Andrei Stsepanchuk  Belarus 3:59:32
20 Sergey Korepanov  Kazakhstan 3:59:33
21 Eddy Riva  France 4:00:25
22 David Boulanger  France 4:01:32
23 Aleksandar Raković  Serbia and Montenegro 4:02:06
24 Zoltán Czukor  Hungary 4:03:51
25 Modris Liepinš  Latvia 4:04:26
26 Sérgio Galdino  Brazil 4:05:02
27 Kim Dong-young  South Korea 4:05:16
28 Jani Lehtinen  Finland 4:05:35
29 Craig Barrett  New Zealand 4:06:48
30 Daugvinas Zujus  Lithuania 4:09:41
31 Tim Berrett  Canada 4:10:31
32 Curt Clausen  United States 4:11:31
33 José Antonio González  Spain 4:11:51
34 Jorge Costa  Portugal 4:12:24
35 Philip Dunn  United States 4:12:49
36 Kazimír Verkin  Slovakia 4:13:11
37 Rustam Kuvatov  Kazakhstan 4:13:40
38 Miloš Holuša  Czech Republic 4:15:01
39 Georgios Argiropoulos  Greece 4:17:25
40 Mario José dos Santos  Brazil 4:20:11
41 János Tóth  Hungary 4:29:33
Spiridon Kastanis  Greece DNF
Denis Langlois  France DNF
André Höhne  Germany DNF
Luis Fernando García  Guatemala DNF
Mario Iván Flores  Mexico DNF
Pedro Martins  Portugal DNF
Theodoros Stamatopoulos  Greece DNF
Han Yucheng  China DNF
Takayuki Tanii  Japan DSQ
Nathan Deakes  Australia DSQ
Andreas Erm  Germany DSQ
Julio René Martínez  Guatemala DSQ
Giovanni de Benedictis  Italy DSQ

References

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  1. ^ "IAAF Athens 2004: Men's 50km Race Walk Final". Athens 2004. IAAF. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  2. ^ "Athletics at the 2004 Athens Summer Games: Men's 50 kilometres Walk". sports-reference.com. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 9 December 2017.
  3. ^ a b Arcoleo, Laura (27 August 2004). "Olympic gold number four for Korzeniowski". IAAF. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  4. ^ "Korzeniowski wins historic third 50km walk". Rediff.com. 27 August 2004. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  5. ^ "Polish walker earns fourth Olympic gold". USA Today. 27 August 2004. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
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