At the 2016 Rio Olympics, the Chinese athletics team won two gold medals by Liu Hong and Wang Zhen in the women's 20 km race walk and the men's 20 km race walk. Entering the Tokyo Olympic cycle, the Chinese athletics team's women's race walking still maintains its world leadership, and the men's race walk has dropped sharply. This morning, Beijing time, in the 20-kilometer race walking competition of the 104th National Championships of Japan held in Kobe City, Doha World Championship champion Nishina Toshiwa won the championship with a time of 1 hour, 17 minutes and 20 minutes, ranking fifth in the history of the project and third in Asian history, creating the best result in the world in the new season. The men's 20 km race walk has become the biggest gold medal in the field of athletics for the host of this year's Tokyo Olympic Games.
China is a race walking power, and what is less known is the gold medal of the men's 20 km race walk in the last two Olympic Games, which were won by the Chinese team. London 2012 Olympic Games. Chen Ding, who was less than 20 years old, won the gold medal in a famous battle, when Wang Zhen won the bronze medal and Cai Zelin finished fourth. At the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, Wang Zhen won the gold medal in 1 hour, 19 minutes and 14 seconds, and Cai Zelin won the silver medal.
However, entering the Tokyo Olympic cycle, China's men's race walking advantage is gradually lost. At the 2017 World Championships in London, Colombia's Arevaro won the championship, and China's Wang Kaihua only finished seventh. At the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games, Wang Kaihua overtook Japan's Shanxi Lihe in the last two kilometers to win the championship. But at the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Shanxi Lihe won the championship in 1 hour, 26 minutes and 34 seconds, and the best result of the Chinese team was still Wang Kaihua's seventh place.
Last year, the Olympic Games were postponed due to the impact of the epidemic, and several track and field competitions were also postponed or postponed. However, in the men's 20 km race walk, the Japanese team won the world's top five best results last season, and Shanxi Lihe ranked first in the world with 1 hour, 17 minutes and 36 minutes, which ranked 6th in Japan's history and also tied for 6th in Asian history. The current national record for the men's 20 km in China is Wang Zhen's 1 hour, 17 minutes and 36 minutes set in Taicang in March 2012.
Today's Japan National Championship, Toshiwa Nisano won the championship in 1 hour 17 minutes and 20 seconds, Hideki Takahashi finished second in 1 hour 18 minutes 04 seconds, and Ikeda Xiangxi finished third in 1 hour 18 minutes and 45 seconds. The 1 hour, 17 minutes and 20 seconds is ranked 5th in the history of the project and third in the history of Asia, which is a very high level of performance, which is enough to see how competitive the Japanese team is in this event.
The world record for the men's 20 km race walk was set by Japan's Yusuke Suzuki in early 2015 for 1 hour, 16 minutes and 36 seconds.