Frenchman Diniz sets new world record of 20km race walk
Xinhua, March 9, 2015 Adjust font size:
European champion Yohann Diniz set a new world record of the men's 20km race walk at the French Championships in Arles on Sunday.
His winning time of one hour, 17 minutes and two seconds improved the previous mark by 14 seconds and came just nine months after breaking the 50km world record at the European championships in Zurich last year.
The 37-year-old admitted that he's not planned to attack the world record but just been in better form than anticipated while having recently returned from a training stint in South Africa.
"After five kilometers, I was much quicker than I had planned," said Diniz after the race comprised 16 laps of a 1.25km circuit.
"My coach just told me to stay in my bubble and continue to stay clean technically," he added.
The French track and field team was currently competing at the European Indoor Championships where race walking was not included.
"It's a shame race walking isn't included at the European Indoor Championships, but at least my record will be part of the athletics weekend," said Diniz who sped up in the final quarter of the race to cover the last 5km in little more than 19 minutes.
Russian race walker Sergey Morozov clocked 1:16:43 in 2008 but the fastest performance in history over 20km wasn't ratified as it didn't fulfil the criteria of having the required three international judges present. Endi