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
Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's 20 kilometres walk was barely able to walk, while a fresh Lashmanova celebrated her victory. , the existing world and Olympic records were as follows. The following records were established during the competition: Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's 20 kilometres walk The women's 20 kilometres walk at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom, was held on 11 August on a route along The Mall and Constitution Hill. From the start of the race, defending champion Olga Kaniskina took the lead, only Liu Hong would go with her. The two opened up a big gap with a chase pack