Evan Dunfee, of Canada, competes in the men's 50km race walk at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Friday, Aug. 6, 2021, in Sapporo, Japan. Dunfee has claimed bronze in the 50-kilometre race walk at the Tokyo Olympics. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Eugene Hoshiko
August 05, 2021 - 5:35 PM
SAPPORO, Japan - Canada's Evan Dunfee won a bronze medal in the last Olympic men's 50-kilometre race walk Friday.
The 30-year-old from Richmond, B.C., reached the podium in a race of attrition amid the heat and humidity of Sapporo. The temperature at the 5:30 a.m. start was 25 C with over 70 per cent humidity and it got hotter.
Poland's Dawid Tomala captured gold, Germany's Jonathan Hilbert claimed silver, while Dunfee took the final podium spot with a late push on the final lap.
The International Olympic Committee will remove the 50k race walk from the Summer Games program for gender balance. There isn't a women's 50k race walk. Men and women both compete in 20k.
Dunfee knew how to manage the heat over 25 laps of the two-kilometre course. He endured sweltering conditions at the 2019 world championship in Doha, Qatar, to win bronze.
Guillaume LeBlanc is Canada's only other race walk medallist with a 20k silver in Barcelona in 1992.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published August 5, 2021.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2021