2017 World Championships in Athletics – Women's 50 kilometres walk 2017 World Championships in Athletics – Women's 50 kilometres walk The women's 50 kilometres walk at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics was held on a 2 kilometre course comprising lengths of The Mall between Buckingham Palace and Admiralty Arch on 13 August. This was the first time women were offered this event in the world championships, finally equalizing all events for both genders. Only seven women toed the start line. With the event in its infancy, Inês Henriques (POR) had set the world record in January. From the start, Henriques was dominating the race though Yin Hang (CHN) was
Athletics at the 2016 Summer Olympics not the venue for the opening or closing ceremonies in Rio de Janeiro – that honour went to Brazil's foremost soccer venue, the Maracanã Stadium. On the first day, the first gold medal was won by Almaz Ayana of Ethiopia, who broke a long-standing world record in the women's 10,000 metres by almost fifteen seconds. The race as a whole was historically fast, setting four of the five fastest times ever for the distance and seeing eight national records broken. China's Wang Zhen was the first male winner of the 2016 Olympic athletics, topping the 20 kilometres race walk podium.