Ecuadorian race walker Paula Torres (© AFP / Getty Images)
There was a terrific finish to the women’s 20km at the fourth Korzeniowski Warsaw Race Walking Cup – a World Athletics Race Walking Tour Gold meeting – on Sunday (4).
A third 2025 duel between Paula Torres and Kimberly Garcia produced a hat-trick of wins for the Ecuadorean - but this time by just one second.
In fact, the result was in doubt until the last 50 metres when Torres squeezed out all she could to break the tape just ahead of the two-time world champion.
Throughout the race, Garcia kept striving to make the all-important gap, but each time Torres reeled her in.
Even when both shrugged off the challenge from Viviane Lyra with 3km to go, there was never more than a stride between them until the finish recorded by Torres in 1:28:29, with Garcia only a couple of strides behind.
Lyra from Brazil was third in 1:28:54, but for a long time she more than held her own against the other two.
As expected, Garcia, with a blue kinaesthetic strip protecting her right quad and right arm, Torres, Lyra, augmented by Ecuador’s Magaly Bonilla, forged an immediate lead, followed a few metres back by double world silver medallist Katarzyna Zdzieblo.
The initial pace was moderate for a quartet with PBs all comfortably under 1:30:00, but by 3km Zdzieblo was already a distant fourth with the rest of the small field fighting for the minor places.
A small increase in tempo was too much for Bonilla, and she got dropped at 5km (22:34). Torres carved the smallest of gaps just past 6km, but the other two quickly closed the gap with all of them detouring past standing puddles left by overnight rain.
A 31:18 clocking at 7km was significantly faster, and this time Lyra and Garcia were the pair forcing the pace. In fact, 9km reached at 40:14, found Torres needing to close a small gap, with Garcia now asking the questions.
It was 44:40 at halfway to underline a race getting serious. Meanwhile, a fading Bonilla provided a welcome target for Zdzieblo at 14km. The Pole passed the Ecuadorean to take fourth albeit more than a minute behind the leading three.
The time at 15km was 1:06:44, which proved too much for Lyra despite having race walked faster than the other two this year. For the first time, the Brazilian looked laboured, while Torres and Garcia upped the gears to the finish.
There was only a second in it at 19km, and it stayed that way over the final scintillating lap with Torres taking victory in 1:28:29 to Garcia’s 1:28:30.
In contrast, the men’s race was a comfortable stroll for Toshikazu Yamanishi in 1:20:48.
In fact, the result was done and dusted very soon after 5km. At that point, the new world record-holder put the hammer down and all but disappeared into the distance.
Former winner Ciao Bonfim, racing for the fifth time in 2025, gamely gave chase, but the Japanese lead increased from there to the finish – albeit slowly.
Bonfim recorded 1:21:32, and Yamanishi’s teammate Kazuki Takahashi was more than two minutes back in distant third, having covered the rest of the race solo from that 5km split.
A bonus for race organiser and race walking great Robert Korzeniowski was greeting Maher Ben Hlima in fourth place, fresh off a Polish record of 2:27:51 over 35km in Dudince in March.
Bonfim, Japan’s Yuta Koga, Takahashi, and Yamanishi had pushed the early pace, and although the pace wasn’t blazing fast, Koga was a casualty just after 3km and quickly went backwards.
Just after quarter distance, Yamanishi found half a gear. Takahashi detached almost immediately; Bonfim gave chase and just about held the initial gap to about 15 metres. Meanwhile, the second group had absorbed Koga with fourth place now up for grabs.
But up front, the world record-holder was away and comfortably gone. A glance across as he rounded one of the two 180-degree turns told him all he needed to know as early as 8km. Even so, Bonfim wasn’t going down with a fight.
The lead was indeed extending metre by metre but it was still only 11 seconds at 11km. Takahashi was isolated in third 1:04 further back, and Ben Hlima was 1:44 behind towing Germany’s Nathaniel Seiler and Harun Bilir (Turkiye). However, the Turk’s challenge was brief, which left the Pole and the German a free ride to fourth and fifth places.
The metronomic leader hit his watch at 15km (1:00:22) 21 seconds in front of Bonfim and 1:36 ahead of Takahashi. Behind the three, Ben Hlima was forging a gap over Seiler – and that final move decided the first five places.
Paul Warburton for World Athletics
Leading results
Women
1 Paula Torres (ECU) 1:28:29
2 Kimberly Garcia (PER) 1:28:30
3 Viviane Lyra (BRA) 1:28:54
4 Katarzyna Zdzieblo (POL) 1:30:33
5 Valeria Ortuno Martinez (MEX) 1:32:34
Men
1 Toshikazu Yamanishi (JPN) 1:20:50
2 Caio Bonfim (BRA) 1:21:34
3 Kazuki Takahashi (JPN) 1:22:55
4 Maher Ben Hlima (POL) 1:23:34
5 Nathaniel Seiler (GER) 1:23:49
