50 kilometres Race Walk, Men

The pre-Games favorite was Italian Alex Schwazer, the 2008 gold medalist, but he was out, the victim of a positive doping test for EPO shortly before the Games. Another favorite was Frenchman Yohann Diniz, but he would be disqualified during the race, but not for the usual reasons. Diniz was disqualified for violating Rule 230.9g, “taking refreshment at other than an official aid station.“

That opened the race up a bit and in the end the gold went to Russian Sergey Kirdyapkin, who was a two-time World Champion (2005, 2009) and won by almost a minute over Australia Jared Tallent, who was also second to Schwazer at Beijing. Kirdyapkin took the lead when he surged after 40 km and had a clear lead at 45 km, which Tallent could never close. Tallent was hampered by two cards for lifting and had to be careful near the end to avoid disqualification. Kirdyapkin’s victory atoned somewhat for the poor Russian showing in the 20K walk when only one of their walkers, Andrey Krivov, finished and he placed 37th, although 2011 World Champion Sergey Bakulin placed only sixth in this event. The bronze went to Chinese walker Si Tianfeng, which complemented the gold/bronze won by China in the 20K.

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.

All three Russian walkers in this event were disqualified for biological passport offenses. The original gold medalist was Sergey Kirdyapkin, whose disqualification was announced on 20 January 2015. Igor Yerokhin and Sergey Bakulin, who originally finished fifth and sixth, respectively, were also disqualified. The medals in this event were re-assigned to Jared Tallent (AUS / gold), Si Tianfeng (CHN / silver), and Robbie Heffernan (IRL / bronze).

All three Russians 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).