2017 World Championships in Athletics – Men's 50 kilometres walk 2017 World Championships in Athletics – Men's 50 kilometres walk The men's 50 kilometres walk at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics was held on a two kilometre course comprising lengths of The Mall between Buckingham Palace and Admiralty Arch on 13 August. Four days before the event, three time World Championship medallist, Australia's Jared Tallent was forced to withdraw from the event due to a hamstring injury. From the start, world record holder, 39 year old Yohann Diniz (FRA) walked with a sense of purpose. Save a silver medal in 2007, the World Championships had resulted in disqualifications and
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.