Summer Olympics: 20km walking race winning times 1956-2020

At the Summer Olympics, the 20km walking race has been a regular men's event since 1956, and a regular woman's event since 2000. The Olympic records were set in 2012; the record for men was set by China's Chen Ding, with a time of 78 minutes and 46 seconds, and the women's record was set by Russia's Elena Lashmanova, with a time of 85 minutes and 2 seconds. The world record for men was set by Japan's Yusuke Suzuki in 2015, with a time of 76 minutes and 36 seconds, and the women's world record was set by China's Jiayu Yang in 2021, with a time of 83 minutes and 49 seconds. The Soviet Union's Volodymyr Holubnychy is the only athlete to have ever won two gold medals in the 20km walk, in 1960 and 1968. Athletes representing twelve different countries have won golds across both the men's and women's events, with China and Italy taking four golds each.

Rules

It is a common misconception that competitors must have at least one foot on the ground at all times. In reality, contestants frequently have both feet off the ground, but this is only a punishable offense when the loss of contact becomes visible to the human eye. Although there is frequent video evidence that athletes may be "flying", judges are not allowed to use video assistance, therefore these infractions usually go unnoticed as the competitors have such a high cadence rates (i.e. steps per minute). To put this into context, Olympic race walkers have a similar cadence rate to those athletes running in the Olympic 800 meters.

Gold medal winning times in the Men's and Women's 20km walking race at the Summer Olympics from 1956 to 2020 (in minutes*)

Year	Men's 20km	Women's 20km
Tokyo 2020	81.08	89.2
Rio 2016	79.23	88.58
London 2012	78.77	85.03
Beijing 2008	79.02	86.52
Athens 2004	79.07	89.2
Sydney 2000	78.98	89.08
Atlanta 1996	80.12	-
Barcelona 1992	81.75	-
Seoul 1988	79.95	-
Los Angeles 1984	83.22	-
Moscow 1980	83.59	-
Montreal 1976	84.68	-
Munich 1972	86.71	-
Mexico City 1968	93.97	-
Tokyo 1964	89.57	-
Rome 1960	94.12	-
Melbourne 1956	91.46	-

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Release date

2021

More information

Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

1956 to 2021

Supplementary notes

This data was collected using the official Olympic.org site, as well as a spreadsheet from the Guardian that includes data from 1896-2008 (available here), 2012 and 2016 data was compared with that from Encyclopaedia Britannica, and several news outlets were used to update the table when medals were reassigned (i.e. for doping offenses).

In order to display the data visually, the times have been converted into metric minutes. The standard times (male listed first) are as follows (mm:ss):
1956 - 91:27
1960 - 94:07
1964 - 89:34
1968 - 93:58
1972 - 86:43
1976 - 84:41
1980 - 83:36
1984 - 83:13
1988 - 79:57
1992 - 81:45
1996 - 80:07
2000 - 78:59 & 89:05
2004 - 79:04 & 89:12
2008 - 79:01 & 86:31
2012 - 78:46 & 85:02
2016 - 79:14 & 88:35
2020 - 81:05 & 89:12

The winning athletes (male listed first) and their represented countries are as follows:
1956 - Leonid Spirin (Soviet Union)
1960 - Vladimir Golubnichy (Soviet Union)
1964 - Kenneth Joseph Matthews (Great Britain)
1968 - Vladimir Golubnichy (Soviet Union)
1972 - Peter Frenkel (East Germany)
1976 - Daniel Bautista Rocha (Mexico)
1980 - Maurizio Damilano (Italy)
1984 - Ernesto Canto (Mexico)
1988 - Jozef Pribilinec (Czechoslovakia)
1992 - Daniel Plaza (Spain)
1996 - Jefferson Perez (Ecuador)
2000 - Robert Korzeniowski (Poland) & Wang Liping (China)
2004 - Ivano Brugnetti (Italy) & Athanasia Tsoumeleka (Greece)
2008 - Valeriy Borchin (Russia) & Olga Kaniskina (Russia)
2012 - Chen Ding (China) & Elena Lashmanova (Russia)
2016 - Wang Zhen (China) & Liu Hong (China)
2020 - Massimo Stano (Italy) & Antonella Palmisano (Italy)