20 kilometres Race Walk, Men

China had been improving in the walks over the last few years, but nobody was quite expecting the result of this race. Chen Ding won the gold medal, while his countrymen Wang Zhen and Cai Zelin placed 3-4, to give China three of the top four spots. The silver went to Guatemalan Erick Barrondo, making this the first Olympic walk podium without a European, as Spain’s Miguel Ángel López placed fifth.

Chen took the lead from the start, leading at the halfway point with Wang in 40:08, but Chen poured it on over the last 10K, negative splitting with a final 38:38, and what Track & Field News described as a withering final lap in 7:31. The leaders were quite young, with Chen winning the day before his 20th birthday, while Wang was 20, and Barrondo and Cai only 21-years-old. Barrondo’s medal was the first ever Olympic medal for Guatemala.

The Chinese walk improvement was credited to Sandro Damilano, their Italian coach and the brother of 3-time Olympic medalist Maurizio Damilano. He stressed technique to the Chinese, who had earlier been known for frequent disqualifications but had long overcome that. One major surprise in the 20K walk was the poor showing of the Russian walkers. Two-time World Champion Valeriy Borchin staggered off the course with less than two kilometres left, the victim of a warm day, and did not finish, although he had been second at the time, while Vladimir Kanaykin was disqualified, and Andrey Krivov placed only 37th.

That was how the event and the results seemed to have ended. In 2015, however, the IOC began re-testing samples from the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics, using newer, more advanced testing techniques, in an effort to find those who had used performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), but in whom it could not be detected at the time of those Olympics. This was one of the many events affected.

In January 2015 two Russians, Valeriy Borchin and Vladimir Kanaykin, were “disqualified” for biological passport offenses. Kanaykin had actually already been disqualified with three red cards, so effectively he was disqualified from having been disqualified, while Borchin, who did not finish in London, was thus disqualified from not finishing. In August 2017 the third Russian competitor, Andrey Krivov, who originally finished 37th, was also disqualified for a biological passport offense.

The three Russian walkers in the 50 km race were also all disqualified on re-testing. All Russians walkers were coached by Viktor Chegin, who was infamous for his athletes testing positive for PED usage, which more than 35 of them did between 2005-15. On 17 February 2016, Chegin was banned for life from athletics coaching by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA).