As the year draws to a close, we look back at the key moments of 2025 in each area of the sport. The series continues with a review of the race walks.
Women’s 20km race walk
Season top list
| 1:24:20 |
Elvira Chepareva (RUS) |
Sochi |
10 January |
| 1:24:49 |
Reykhan Kagramanova (RUS) |
Votkinsk |
25 May |
| 1:25:54 |
Maria Perez (ESP) |
Tokyo |
20 September |
| 1:26:06 |
Alegna Gonzalez (MEX) |
Tokyo |
20 September |
| 1:26:18 |
Nanako Fujii (JPN) |
Tokyo |
20 September |
Full season top list
World Athletics rankings
| 1 |
Maria Perez (ESP) |
1359 |
| 2 |
Alegna Gonzalez (MEX) |
1322 |
| 3 |
Paula Torres (ECU) |
1293 |
| 4 |
Kimberly Garcia (PER) |
1281 |
| 5 |
Jemima Montag (AUS) |
1258 |
Full rankings
World Athletics Championships medallists
| 🥇 |
Maria Perez (ESP) |
1:25:54 |
| 🥈 |
Alegna Gonzalez (MEX) |
1:26:06 |
| 🥉 |
Nanako Fujii (JPN) |
1:26:18 |
| Full results |
Major winners
World Athletics Championships: Maria Perez (ESP) 1:25:54
World Athletics Race Walking Tour: Maria Perez (ESP) 4136
South American Championships: Viviane Lyra (BRA) 1:28.30
Asian Championships: Yin Hang (CHN) 1:30:44
Season snapshot
- Seven days after retaining her world 35km title, Spain’s Maria Perez completed her 'double double' with a successful defence of the 20km title she had won two years earlier in Budapest. With the 20km and 35km distances being replaced by the half marathon and marathon events as from 1 January 2026, the 29-year-old will thus be women’s 35km and 20km world champion in perpetuity.
- Perez secured her latest title in 1:25:54 - the second-fastest time of her career. She was chased over the finish line by Mexico's Alegna Gonzalez, who set a North American record of 1:26:06.
- An exhausted Nanako Fujii delighted the home fans by finishing a step ahead of Ecuador’s fast-finishing Paula Torres to earn bronze in a Japanese record of 1:26:18 – her nation's first medal in a women's race walking event in World Championships history. It was the host country’s second medal in Tokyo following the bronze won by Hayato Katsuki in the men’s 35km race walk.
- Australia’s Elizabeth McMillen won the women’s 20km race walk title at the World University Games in Bochum, Germany in 1:28:18 - a personal best that equalled the 10-year-old Games record. Team gold went to China.
- Two Russian athletes headed the top list for the year – Elvira Chepareva, who recorded 1:24:20, and Reykhan Kagramanova, who clocked 1:24:49. Neither athlete was on the starting line in Tokyo due to Russia’s ongoing suspension from international sport.
Men’s 20km race walk
Season top list
| 1:16:10 |
Toshikazu Yamanishi (JPN) |
Kobe |
16 February |
| 1:17:23 |
Sergey Kozheevnikov (RUS) |
Votkinsk |
25 May |
| 1:17:24 |
Satoshi Maruo (JPN) |
Kobe |
16 February |
| 1:17:30 |
Zhaozhao Wang (CHN) |
Taicang |
1 March |
| 1:17:33 |
Lihong Cui (CHN) |
Taicang |
1 March |
Full season top list
World Athletics rankings
| 1 |
Zhaozhao Wang (CHN) |
1361 |
| 2 |
Caio Bonfim (BRA) |
1360 |
| 3 |
Paul McGrath (ESP) |
1349 |
| 4 |
Toshikazu Yamanishi (JPN) |
1338 |
| 5 |
Gabriel Bordier (FRA) |
1315 |
Full rankings
World Athletics Championships medallists
| 🥇 |
Caio Bonfim (BRA) |
1:18:35 |
| 🥈 |
Wang Zhaozhao (CHN) |
1:18:43 |
| 🥉 |
Paul McGrath (ESP) |
1:18:45 |
| Full results |
Major winners
World Athletics Championships: Caio Bonfim (BRA) 1:18:35
World Athletics Race Walking Tour: Evan Dunfee (CAN) 4077
South American Championships: Luis Henry Campos (PER) 1:21:26
Asian Championships: Wang Zhaozhao (CHN) 1:20:36
Season snapshot
- Caio Bonfim won his first global gold in the 20km race walk a week after earning 35km silver. The 34-year-old Brazilian, who had won another silver and two bronzes before these championships, overtook three contenders on the final lap of a race where home favourite and world record-holder Toshikazu Yamanishi was penalised late in the race while leading.
- Bonfim, who said he thought he was second when he was finishing, threw himself on to the ground upon learning he had finished first, clocking 1:18:35. He added: “I lost my wedding ring in the third kilometre. I believe my wife will be OK because I won today.”
- China's Wang Zhaozhao secured silver in 1:18:43 and Spain's Paul McGrath, proceeding with caution as he was one card away from being penalised, finished two seconds later. For both men it was a first World Championships medal.
- Yamanishi, who eventually finished 28th in 1:22:39, had set the best time of the year, 1:16:10, in Kobe in February. “I am very disappointed,” Yamanishi said. “I wish I had been more careful during the race. I wanted to win the gold medal, so I pushed for it.”
- Italy’s Andrea Cosi broke a 12-year-old World University Games record by winning the men’s 20m race walk at the Bochum, Germany edition in 1:19:48, taking 59 seconds off the previous mark.
Women’s 35km race walk
Season top list
| 2:38:59 |
Maria Perez (ESP) |
Podebrady |
18 May |
| 2:39:35 |
Antonella Palmisano (ITA) |
Podebrady |
18 May |
| 2:40:49 |
Li Ma (CHN) |
Hefei |
29 March |
| 2:41:47 |
Nicole Colombi (ITA) |
Podebrady |
18 May |
| 2:41:54 |
Eleonora Giorgi (ITA) |
Aksu |
22 February |
Full season top list
World Athletics rankings
| 1 |
Marie Perez (ESP) |
1421 |
| 2 |
Antonella Palmisano (ITA) |
1372 |
| 3 |
Paula Torres (ECU) |
1340 |
| 4 |
Katarzyna Zdzieblo (POL) |
1299 |
| 5 |
Li Peng (CHN) |
1288 |
Full rankings
World Athletics Championships medallists
| 🥇 |
Maria Perez (ESP) |
2:39:01 |
| 🥈 |
Antonella Palmisano (ITA) |
2:42:24 |
| 🥉 |
Paula Milena Torres (ECU) |
2:42:44 |
| Full results |
Major winners
World Athletics Championships: Maria Perez (ESP) 2:39:01
World Athletics Race Walking Tour: Maria Perez (ESP) 4136
Season snapshot
- Spain’s Maria Perez, defending the 35km and 20km titles she had won in Budapest two years earlier, completed the first part of her task with relative ease, breaking clear two-thirds of the way through a race taking place in humid conditions and crossing the line in 2:39:01.
- The 29-year-old had arrived in Tokyo with the world’s leading time of the year, 2:38:59, set in winning the European Race Walking Team Championships in Podebrady.
- The silver medal in Tokyo went to Italy’s Antonella Palmisano, who had won the Olympic 20km in the Japanese capital four years earlier. She clocked 2:42:24 to earn a third world medal following bronzes in 2017 and 2023. Bronze went to Ecuador’s Paula Torres, the early leader, in 2:42.44.
- The Podebrady meeting produced three of the top four 2025 times as Palmisano finished second in 2:39:35 and her Italian team-mate Nicole Colombi recorded 2:41.47. China’s Li Ma recorded 2:40:49 in Hefei in March, and another Italian race walker, Eleonora Giorgi, clocked 2:41:54 in Aksu in February.
- Perez, with victories in Podebrady and, over 20km, in La Coruña, finished top of the women’s standings in the World Athletics Race Walking Tour on 4136 points, from Mexico’s Alegna Gonzalez on 3960 and Palmisano on 3958.
Men’s 35km race walk
Season top list
| 2:20:43 |
Massimo Stano (ITA) |
Podebrady |
18 May |
| 2:21:40 |
Evan Dunfee (CAN) |
Dudince |
22 March |
| 2:22:56 |
Vasiliy Misinov (RUS) |
Sochi |
24 February |
| 2:23:21 |
Christopher Linke (GER) |
Podebrady |
18 May |
| 2:23:48 |
Miguel Lopez (ESP) |
Podebrady |
18 May |
Full season top list
World Athletics rankings
| 1 |
Evan Dunfee (CAN) |
1415 |
| 2 |
Hayato Katsuki (JPN) |
1335 |
| 3 |
Massimo Stano (ITA) |
1316 |
| 4 |
Caio Bonfim (BRA) |
1310 |
| 5 |
Christopher Linke (GER) |
1290 |
Full rankings
World Athletics Championships medallists
| 🥇 |
Evan Dunfee (CAN) |
2:28:22 |
| 🥈 |
Caio Bonfim (BRA) |
2:28:55 |
| 🥉 |
Hyato Katsuki (JPN) |
2:29:16 |
| Full results |
Major winners
World Athletics Championships: Evan Dunfee (CAN) 2:28:22
World Athletics Race Walking Tour: Evan Dunfee (CAN) 4077
Season snapshot
- Canada’s Evan Dunfee earned a first global gold at the age of 34 as he exemplified his pre-event assessment: “It’s not over until it’s over.” Dunfee kept moving along in attritionally humid conditions in Tokyo as Masatora Kawano and Hayato Katsuki seemed to be teeing themselves up for a home 1-2 but they faded in the closing stages.
- Finally, Dunfee – who had won 50km bronze at the 2019 World Championships and at the Olympics in 2021 – reeled both his Japanese rivals in and withstood a late challenge from Brazil’s Caio Bonfim before seizing a richly deserved triumph in 2:28:22, with Bonfirm taking silver in 2:28:55 and Katsuki bronze in 2:29:16.
- Dunfee had been the fastest in the field thanks to his world record of 2:21:40 at the World Athletics Race Walking Tour Gold meeting in Dudince in March, which bettered the 2:21:47 recorded by Japan's Masatora Kawano in October 2024.
- Italy’s 2022 world champion Massimo Stano had improved that mark to 2:20:43 in Podebrady in May, which remained the best time of 2025, but he then suffered a hamstring injury which prevented him competing in Tokyo. The retirement of Spain’s 2023 world champion Alvaro Martin therefore meant there would be a new name as the men’s 35km world champion.
- The men’s overall standings in the World Athletics Race Walking Tour were topped by Dunfee on 4077 points, from Bonfim on 4044 and Spain’s Paul McGrath on 3940.
Mike Rowbottom for World Athletics
