HUANGSHAN, China, March 5 (Xinhua) — World champion Yang Jiayu opened her 2023 season with a convincing 20km victory within the first leg of the Chinese National Race Walk Grand Prix right here on Sunday, with the occasion additionally serving as a qualifier for the 2023 World Championships.
27-year-old Yang, winner of the 20km race stroll occasion on the 2017 World Championships, emerged triumphant from a last-5km duel with 2022 World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships winner Ma Zhenxia, setting a world main time of 1 hour, 26 minutes and 41 seconds.
Former youth and junior world champion Ma was two seconds behind to accept second place. Four-time world champion Liu Hong took third place in 1:27:35.
The high three finishers all met the entry customary for the 2023 World Championships in Budapest in August. According to the choice mechanism of the Chinese Athletics Association, two of the three athletes can earn the possibility to compete at this yr’s Hangzhou Asian Games, based mostly on their performances in Budapest.
“My primary goal for the race is to secure a berth in the national team squad for the World Championships, so I am satisfied with my performance. I need to save my best form for the second half of the year instead of giving everything too early,” Yang stated, referring to the final time she raced at Huangshan in 2021, when she set a world file of 1:23:49 however subsequently didn’t reside as much as expectations at that yr’s Tokyo Olympics.
In the boys’s 20km race earlier on Sunday, Wang Zhaozhao, 10km runner-up on the 2018 Race Walking Team Championships, pushed forward to grab the lead after 18km and by no means appeared again till crossing the road in 1:19:40, slicing 30 seconds off his private greatest.
Niu Wenchao clocked 1:19:59 to complete second, adopted by Qian Haifeng in 1:20:20. But since Qian failed to fulfill the World Championships entry customary of 1:20:10, the final spot for China’s males’s 20km race stroll group stays up for grabs.