Yang Jiayu of China chopped 49 seconds off the women’s world record to win the 20km race walk in 1:23:49 seconds at the Chinese Race Walking Championships here on Saturday.
The 2017 world champion finished comfortably ahead of Olympic champion Liu Hong, whose 1:24:27 seconds runner-up time was also inside the previous world record, said World Athletics in a statement.
World silver medallistQieyangShenjie was third in a personal best time of 1:24:45 seconds. It’s the first 20km race in which more than one woman has finished inside one hour and 25 minutes.
On a landmark day for Chinese race walking, Wang Kaihua won the men’s 20km event in a national record of 1:16:54 secs, a performance that moves the 27-year-old to third on the world all-time list, just 18 seconds shy of the world record.