Race walking at the Olympics the first two editions, the women's event was extended to match the men's 20 km distance from the 2000 Sydney Olympics onwards. Women have never commonly competed internationally over 50 km, thus it has never been proposed as an Olympic event – as of 2012 it remains the only event on the Olympic athletics programme in which men compete, but women do not have an equivalent. The 50 km is also the longest distance race for an Olympic athletics event. The Olympic records in racewalking were all broken at the 2012 London Olympics. In the 20 km walk Chen Ding
2009 World Championships in Athletics – Women's 20 kilometres walk 2009 World Championships in Athletics – Women's 20 kilometres walk The Women's 20 km Walk event at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics was held throughout the city of Berlin on August 16, beginning and ending at the Brandenburg Gate. Undefeated since May 2007, the Olympic and World champion Olga Kaniskina was a clear favourite. Russian champion and second fastest of the year Vera Sokolova was predicted as a possible medallist, as were Sabine Krantz and Kjersti Platzer who had both won on the racewalking circuit prior to the competition. Amongst the other fastest athletes before the championships were Russians