Aussie Jared Tallent Wins Pre Olympic Walk in Beijing

The Bird’s Nest is open for pre Olympic events, and an Australian won!

EME NEWS (APR 18, 2008) FLASH
Tallent wins in Beijing
BEIJING (CHN, Apr 18): BirdÂ´s Nest was today unveiled by walkers. First winner of pre-olympic walking competition at 20 km was surprisingly no one from home elite, but Australian Jared Tallent who clocked his second fastest time of the career 1:20:11. He made the decisive move at 17th km and clearly dominated in the last stages. In February he won the national title and qualified for Olympic Games clocking 1:19:41. He is also olympic qualifier at 50 km with December national title 3:44:45. Second Chinese junior Wang Hao improved to 1:20:25 and third another foreigner Mexican Osaka fourth placer Eder Sanchez (1:20:57). Two more non-chinese walkers were in top ten at this event which is part of “Good Luck Beijing” series and IAAF Race Walking Challenge. African record holder and world championships bronze medalist Hatem Ghoula from Tunisia was seventh (1:21:58) and Korean Asian games medalist Kim Hyun-sub finished tenth (1:23:06). Other top Chinese finishers were World University Games 2007 winner Chu Yafei (fourth, 1:21:04) and Dong Jimin (fifth, 1:21:17) who were able to beat more experienced World Cup 2006 medalist and Olympic and world participant Han Yucheng (sixth, 1:21:46). Asian record holder Zhu Hongyun and Australian Luke Adams (hamstring) did not finish the race. The race is also important part of Chinese qualification process to select the olympic team, but the details and conditions are not known.
The temperature was at 21 degrees, 43% humidity, sunny, slight wind outside the stadium and as usual here not too big sight due to smog. Later today womenÂ´s 20 km race will be held.
—
EME NEWS is news service relating to the sport of athletics. It is published on daily basis with additional updates, as required. Copyright is held by Alfons Juck, Perinvest SK, a.s., Krikova 10, 82107 Bratislava, Slovakia. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The redistribution and/or direct reproduction of material from EME NEWS is prohibited unless permission is given by c Perinvest SK (such as being included in a subscription agreement).Email to respond: ajuck@rainside.sk
EME News is used here with permission of publisher.

Author

Larry Eder
Larry Eder has had a 52-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America's first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: "I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself." Also does some updates for BBC Sports at key events, which he truly enjoys. Theme song: Greg Allman, " I'm no Angel."
View all posts