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 2016 Summer Olympics – Men's 20 kilometres walk could follow and López ultimately fell to tenth overall. Wang's lead was never assailed and his compatriot Cai ended the race as silver medallist some 12 seconds behind. Australia's Dane Bird-Smith outwalked home athlete Caio Bonfim to take the bronze medal, though Bonfim was rewarded with fourth and a Brazilian record. While Bosworth faded to sixth, he still left with the British national record. , the existing World and Olympic records stood as follows. Athletics at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Men's 20 kilometres walk The men's 20 kilometres race walk at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro