Spain’s Perez and Italian Fiorini set women’s race walk world records

BIRMINGHAM, England, Aug 15 : Spain’s Maria Perez and Italy’s Sofia Fiorini set world records for the women’s half-marathon and marathon race walks respectively when winning gold medals at the European Athletics Championships on Saturday.

Perez’s time of one hour 30 minutes and six seconds was well inside the world record standard set by World Athletics, and the Spaniard claimed European gold for the first time since winning the 20-km race in 2018 in setting the inaugural record.

Fiorini stormed to gold in the marathon, lapping most of the other competitors to finish in three hours 15 minutes and 11 seconds, surpassing her previous best time by over 10 minutes.

The half-marathon and marathon race walks became official distances from January 1 and World Athletics set 1:30:30 as the world record performance standard required for the inaugural women’s half-marathon and 3:17:00 for the women’s marathon.

Perez, the world record holder for the 35-km event and a four-time world champion, beat Italian Alexandrina Mihai in second, with Ukraine’s Lyudmila Olyanovska taking bronze, in the half-marathon race walk which replaces the 20-km race.

Fiorini finished second at the World Athletics race walking team championships in Brazil in April in a time of 3:25:42, but in Birmingham on Saturday her rivals had no answer once the Italian made her move with less than 10 km remaining.

Poland’s Katarzyna Zdzieblo stuck with Fiorini for much of the race and took silver, coming in over 4-1/2 minutes behind the Italian, with Spain’s Raquel Gonzalez finishing third.