Race walking at the Olympics Race walking at the Olympics Race walking events at the Summer Olympics have been contested over a variety of distances at the multi-sport event. There are three race walking events in the current Olympic athletics programme: a men's and a women's 20 kilometres walk, and a men's 50 kilometres walk. The races are held in a final-only format. The first men's events came at the 1908 London Olympics, which featured 3500 m and 10-mile distances. A 10-kilometre version was introduced at the 1912 Summer Olympics and it continued until 1952 (skipping three editions from 1928–1936). There was also a one-off
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