PREVIEW | Australian 20km Race Walking Championships
Published Fri 10 Feb 2023
Australian and international talent will highlight the Australian 20km Racewalking championships, with a line-up of Olympic, World Championship, European and Commonwealth medallists. Jemima Montag, Declan Tingay Antigoni Ntrismpioti , Lorena Arenas, and Evan Dunfee and Perseus Karlström headline the World Athletics Race Walking Tour bronze label event this Sunday at Melbourne’s Fawkner Park.
With past Australian 20km Championship winners including names of Olympic medallists Nathan Deakes, Jane Saville, Dane Bird-Smith and Jared Tallent that have seemingly come from an Australian medal winning production line, it has become an event that may unearth Australia’s future Olympic medallists. The Australian athletes will be searching for qualification performances and important bonus points on offer for World Championship selection, in what the athletes can expect to be in a competitive field on a proven fast Fawkner park course.
Challenging Australian record holder Jemima Montag will be Olympic silver medallist from Colombia Lorena Arenas and reigning double European Champion from Greece Antigoni Ntrismpioti. Like Montag in the 20km walk, the Greek star Ntrismpioti placed 4th in Oregon last year in the 35km walk, before both athletes took that good form into August by winning the Commonwealth Games and European Championships respectively. It has been Montag who has come out on top of both 10,000m walks on the track at the AIS, races during the Supernova with Montag proving the stronger over the shorter distance. Although a 35km specialist, Ntrismpioti also collected the 20km gold at the European championships in a PB time of 1:29:03.
The Olympic medallist Arenas showed she is returning from an injury-marred 2022 to some good form in Canberra last week and will be tested against Olympian Bec Henderson and teenage prodigy Olivia Sandery. Both Australians bypassed the second supernova race in Canberra last week, choosing to save themselves for the Australian Championships, and both are expected to challenge for a podium finish along with Ecuador’s Magaly Bonilla.
The international attraction in the men’s 20km walk is the winner of the past two editions of the World Athletics Race Walking Tour is Sweden’s Perseus Karlström. Karlström has previously kick-started his World Championship medal winning form with strong wins at the Australian Championships in from 2018 -2020. Australian summers have been favourable to Karlström in the past and he would have expected to continue to continue his unbeaten run of 10 consecutive races across all distances from January 2018-february 2020 in Canberra last Thursday evening. Despite racing to his fastest 10,000m walk on Australian soil, Karlström was beaten by Australian Declan Tingay who was impressive when breaking a long-standing Australian record that had withstood all challenges the list of past and present previous Australian Olympic medallists.
With Karlström boasting a 20km PB from 2019 of 1:18:07, and rarely finishes outside of the 1:20:10 Automatic qualification standard for Oregon, the Australians led by Declan Tingay, Rhydian Cowley, and Kyle Swan will be joined by Canadian Commonwealth Champion and Olympic medallist Evan Dunfee to ensure there is a fast early pace.
The Australian 20km Race Walking Championships will be held at Melbourne’s Fawkner Park, beginning at 7:00am AEDT. Start lists can be found HERE. The timetable can be found HERE.
By Brent Vallance, Athletics Australia
Posted: 10/2/2022
