Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's 50 kilometres walk

Men's 50 kilometres walk at the Games of the XXX Olympiad
Venue	The Mall
Date	11 August
Competitors	63 from 35 nations
Winning time	3:36:53 OR
Medalists
Jared Tallent  Australia Si Tianfeng  China Robert Heffernan  Ireland

Official Video Highlights

The men's 50 kilometres race walk at the 2012 Olympic Games in London was held on 11 August on a route along The Mall and Constitution Hill. The event was marred by the disqualification of all three Russian athletes due to doping violations.

Summary

With 63 starters, there was a large pack at the start, Matej Tóth walking along the side barrier was the first to take the front. By first water stop former world champion Sergey Kirdyapkin and reigning world champion Sergey Bakulin moved to front, with 3 Australians and two Guatemalans among the dozen athletes lined up behind in the lead pack. Si Tianfeng and Yohann Diniz were always just off the lead. At about 18K the pack lost one member as Yuki Yamazaki was given the red paddle taking the pack down to 10, a group 49 seconds ahead of the next competitor Robert Heffernan at 20K in 1:27:44.

At the halfway mark in 1:49:21 Nathan Deakes briefly took the lead, but was then overtaken by Bakulin with Deakes and Erick Barrondo on his shoulder. The leaders were reduced again at the 2 hour mark when Jaime Quiyuch was red paddled. Around 28K Bakulin created a gap, with Barrondo the only chaser, but at that point he already collected 2 red cards. The two leaders hit 30K in 2:10:49, over the next 2K lap, Deakes moved up to the lead group. Another lap, Diniz and Igor Yerokhin joined the group. Barrondo fell off the back of the lead group as Si had joined the pack.

Shortly after 35K Si made a break as he separated from the group gaining as much as a 20-second advantage. From off the pace, previous silver medalist, walking with two red cards himself Jared Tallent passed the slowing Barrondo (who was eventually disqualified) to gain on the group ahead. Deakes fell off the back of the pack as the Australians exchanged positions. Passing Tallent, Kirdyapkin was gaining back on the pack to join the other two Russians and Diniz, launching a group charge after Si.

In the next lap, Diniz was walking along the audience side of the course, while the rest of the Russian group walked down the center of the lane. Inexplicably, Diniz seemed to trip on the barricade alongside the course, crashing to the ground. Dazed on the ground, he did return to walking but later took a break at a water stop, the competition pulling away. He finished the race but was disqualified for taking drinks outside of the designated zone. Shortly after the crash, the three Russians went past Si. Behind the pack, Tallent gained on Si falling behind the pack. Kiryapkin broke away from his teammates. Si resurged to pass the other two Russians with Tallent right behind him. Around 42K, Barrondo was DQed Tallent and Si were battling for second place with Bakulin a dozen seconds behind but fading. Kirdyapkin continued to increase his lead, squashing the Olympic record by more than a minute. 54 seconds behind Tallent also beat the previous record for silver. Si another 100 metres back held on for bronze. Remarkably Heffernan came from well off the pace to catch and out-sprint Yerokhin who had passed his teammate. Heffernan had a new Irish National Record. Five other athletes set national records behind.

Doping and disqualifications

Following the Olympics, Yerokhin's results were struck out due to a doping ban imposed based on previous tests, as with Kirdyapkin, who also received a doping ban following the Olympics.

In a wide-ranging investigation of Russian race walking involving some 30 athletes coached by Viktor Chegin and the Russian anti-doping agency RUSADA, IAAF officials questioned the curious gap in the period of time of Kirdyapkin's RUSADA doping bans that allowed him to keep his gold medal.

The IAAF filed a case with the Court of Arbitration in Lausanne, Switzerland, and on 24 March 2016 the court decided to annul his results dating back to 2009, meaning he was stripped of his gold medal.

Accordingly, Tallent was awarded the gold medal by the IOC at a ceremony in Melbourne, Australia, on 17 June 2016, with Si claiming silver and Heffernan bronze. Tallent was also credited with the Olympic record.

Defending Olympic champion Alex Schwazer was excluded from the event by the Italian National Olympic Committee after he failed a doping test.

Schedule

All times are British Summer Time (UTC+1)

Date	Time	Round
11 August 2012	09:00	Final

Records

Prior to this event, the world and Olympic records stood as follows:

World record	Denis Nizhegorodov (RUS)	3:34:14	Cheboksary, Russia	11 May 2008
Olympic record	Alex Schwazer (ITA)	3:37:09	Beijing, China	22 August 2008
2012 world leading	Jared Tallent (AUS)	3:40:32	Saransk, Russia	13 May 2012

The world leading time and Olympic record were originally credited to Sergey Kirdyapkin, but were both annulled after he was found guilty of doping violations. The Olympic record was consequently credited to Tallent.

Date	Event	Athlete	Time	Notes
11 August	Final	Jared Tallent (AUS)	3:36:53	OR

The following national records were set during this competition:

Ireland national record	Robert Heffernan (IRL)	3:37.54
South Korea national record	Park Chil-sung (KOR)	3:45.55
El Salvador national record	Emerson Hernandez (ESA)	3:53.47
Greece national record	Alexandros Papamichail (GRE)	3:49.56
South Africa national record	Marc Mundell (RSA)	3:55.32
India national record	Basanta Bahadur Rana (IND)	3:56.48

The following area record was set during the competition.

African record

Marc Mundell (RSA)

3:55.32

Result

Rank	Athlete	Nationality	Time	Notes
	Jared Tallent	Australia	3:36:53	OR, PB
	Si Tianfeng	China	3:37:16	PB
	Robert Heffernan	Ireland	3:37:54	NR
4	Li Jianbo	China	3:39:01	PB
5	Matej Tóth	Slovakia	3:41:24
6	Łukasz Nowak	Poland	3:42:47	PB
7	Kōichirō Morioka	Japan	3:43:14	PB
8	André Höhne	Germany	3:44:26	SB
9	Bertrand Moulinet	France	3:45:35	PB
10	Park Chil-sung	South Korea	3:45:55	NR
11	Ivan Trotski	Belarus	3:46:09	PB
12	Jarkko Kinnunen	Finland	3:46:25	PB
13	Horacio Nava	Mexico	3:46:59	SB
14	Marco De Luca	Italy	3:47:19	SB
15	Rafał Sikora	Poland	3:47:47
16	Ihor Hlavan	Ukraine	3:48:07	PB
17	Jesús Ángel García	Spain	3:48:32
18	Trond Nymark	Norway	3:48:37	SB
19	Nathan Deakes	Australia	3:48:45
20	Omar Zepeda	Mexico	3:49:14
21	Christopher Linke	Germany	3:49:19
22	Alexandros Papamihail	Greece	3:49:56	NR
23	Luke Adams	Australia	3:53:41
24	Emerson Hernandez	El Salvador	3:53:57	NR
25	José Leyver	Mexico	3:55:00
26	Brendan Boyce	Ireland	3:55:01	PB
27	Quentin Rew	New Zealand	3:55:03	PB
28	Cédric Houssaye	France	3:55:16
29	Marc Mundell	South Africa	3:55:32	AR
30	Fredy Hernández	Colombia	3:56:00	PB
31	Yim Junghyun	South Korea	3:56:34	SB
32	Serhiy Budza	Ukraine	3:56:35
33	Basanta Bahadur Rana	India	3:56:48	NR
34	Zhao Jianguo	China	3:56:59
35	Kim Dong-Young	South Korea	3:57:33
36	Marius Cocioran	Romania	3:57:52	PB
37	Pedro Isidro	Portugal	3:58:59
38	Antti Kempas	Finland	4:01:50
39	Mikel Odriozola	Spain	4:02:48	SB
40	John Nunn	United States	4:03:28	PB
41	Maciej Rosiewicz	Georgia	4:05:20	SB
42	Igors Kazakevičs	Latvia	4:06:47
43	Tadas Šuškevičius	Lithuania	4:08:16
44	Xavier Moreno	Ecuador	4:09:23
45	Milos Batovsky	Slovakia	4:09:32
46	Vitaliy Anichkin	Kazakhstan	4:14:09
47	Benjamin Sánchez	Spain	4:14:40
48	Dominic King	Great Britain	4:15:05
–	Rafał Fedaczyński	Poland	DNF
–	Nenad Filipović	Serbia	DNF
–	Takayuki Tanii	Japan	DNF
–	João Vieira	Portugal	DNF
–	Edward Araya	Chile	DQ
–	Érick Barrondo	Guatemala	DQ
–	Andrés Chocho	Ecuador	DQ
–	Yohann Diniz	France	DQ
–	Colin Griffin	Ireland	DQ
–	Oleksiy Kazanin	Ukraine	DQ
–	Jaime Quiyuch	Guatemala	DQ
–	Yuki Yamazaki	Japan	DQ
–	Sergey Kirdyapkin	Russia	3:35:59	OR, DQ
–	Igor Yerokhin	Russia	3:37:54	PB, DQ
–	Sergey Bakulin	Russia	3:38:55	DQ