Spain’s 2023 double champion Maria Perez tops 2025 world list for 35km
Peru’s 2022 double champion Kimberly Garcia will provide huge challenge once again
2021 Olympic 20km champion Antonella Palmisano leads Italian medal charge
Spain’s Maria Perez is in fine form heading into her defence of the women’s 35km and 20km race walk titles at the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25.
But if anything, her chances at the longer distance look better, given that she heads this year’s world list with the 2:38:59 she clocked when winning at the European Race Walking Team Championships in Poděbrady – despite stopping for a mid-race comfort break.
The Olympic 20km silver medallist already knows how to utilise her resources to best effect across the two distances, and she will have a full week to recover from the 35km race before taking up the 20km challenge.
But will she toe the line on the morning of 20 September as a gold medallist from the opening morning of the championships?
Among those who appear most capable of Spaniard’s plans is the 31-year-old whose feat Perez replicated at the 2023 World Championships – Peru’s Kimberly Garcia.
At the 2022 World Championships in Oregon, Garcia first secured the 20km title before going on to become the first winner of the newly-installed 35km race. A year later in Budapest she added a world 35km silver as she followed Perez home and missed out on a 20km medal by one place.
Garcia’s season’s best of 2:45:59 means she is only the 14th fastest in the field, but her personal best of 2:37:44 and the weight of her top-level experience tell a different story.
Another contender with solid gold credentials will be Italy’s Antonella Palmisano, the 2021 Olympic 20km champion whose season’s best of 2:39:35 puts her second on the world list behind Perez.
Palmisano took 20km world bronze in 2023, and added the European title in Rome a year later before experiencing the disappointment of failing to finish in the 2024 Olympic 20km.
China’s Asian silver medallist Ma Li, who set a PB of 2:40:49 in March, is the third fastest entrant ahead of Palmisano’s teammates Nicole Colombi (2:41:47) and Eleonora Giorgi (2:41:54).
Eight years after earning world silver over 50km, China’s Yin Hang makes her second World Championships appearance, this time over 35km. She has a best of 2:42:34 this year, putting her just ahead of Australia’s Olivia Sandery, who set an Oceanian record of 2:42.40 in March.
Like Perez and Garcia, Alegna Gonzalez is also doubling up in Tokyo. The Mexican, who finished fifth over 20km at the past two Olympic Games and at the last World Championships, made her 35km debut earlier this year and clocked a North American record of 2:44:28.
Other names to look out for include Brazil’s Viviane Lyra and the Polish athlete who followed Garcia home in both the 20km and 35km at the 2022 World Championships, Katarzyna Zdzieblo.
Ecuador’s Paula Torres, who has also set a personal best this year (2:44:26), is also a highly talented medal contender at a distance that is contested relatively rarely.
Mike Rowbottom for World Athletics
AloJapan.com