2009 World Championships in Athletics – Men's 50 kilometres walk 2009 World Championships in Athletics – Men's 50 kilometres walk The men's 50 kilometre walk at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics took place on August 21, 2009 on the streets of Berlin, Germany. The event started and finished at the Brandenburg Gate. Prior to the competition, previous winners did not appear to be medal prospects: the defending world champion Nathan Deakes missed the competition due to injury, and the reigning Olympic champion Alex Schwazer had failed to finish his sole 50 km race of the season. Frenchman Yohann Diniz, as the European Champion, was expected to perform well. The
Athletics at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Men's 50 kilometres walk on the home stretch, but had accumulated much ground to finish strong with a silver medal, before collapsing to the track in exhaustion. Meanwhile, his fast-charging teammate Voyevodin surpassed the confident Yu just outside the stadium to claim the bronze with a tremendous finish, edging the Chinese off the podium by eleven seconds. , the existing World and Olympic records were as follows. No new records were set during the competition. The qualification period for athletics was 1 January 2003 to 9 August 2004. For the men's 20 kilometres race walk, each National Olympic Committee was permitted to enter up