Canada’s Evan Dunfee captures bronze in 50-kilometre race walk

SAPPORO, Japan – Canada’s Evan Dunfee won a bronze medal in the last Olympic men’s 50-kilometre race walk Friday.

The 30-year-old from Richmond, B.C., reached the podium in a race of attrition amid the heat and humidity of Sapporo. The temperature at the 5:30 a.m. start was 25 C with over 70 per cent humidity and it got hotter.

Poland’s Dawid Tomala captured gold, Germany’s Jonathan Hilbert claimed silver, while Dunfee took the final podium spot with a late push on the final lap.

The International Olympic Committee will remove the 50k race walk from the Summer Games program for gender balance. There isn’t a women’s 50k race walk. Men and women both compete in 20k.

Dunfee knew how to manage the heat over 25 laps of the two-kilometre course. He endured sweltering conditions at the 2019 world championship in Doha, Qatar, to win bronze.

Guillaume LeBlanc is Canada’s only other race walk medallist with a 20k silver in Barcelona in 1992.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published August 5, 2021.