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| Event type

50 kilometres Race Walk, Men

Date11 August 2012 — 9:00
StatusOlympic
LocationThe Mall, London
Participants63 from 35 countries

The pre-Games favorite was Italian Alex Schwazer, the 2008 gold medalist, but he was out, the victim of a positive doping test for EPO shortly before the Games. Another favorite was Frenchman Yohann Diniz, but he would be disqualified during the race, but not for the usual reasons. Diniz was disqualified for violating Rule 230.9g, “taking refreshment at other than an official aid station.“

That opened the race up a bit and in the end the gold went to Russian Sergey Kirdyapkin, who was a two-time World Champion (2005, 2009) and won by almost a minute over Australia Jared Tallent, who was also second to Schwazer at Beijing. Kirdyapkin took the lead when he surged after 40 km and had a clear lead at 45 km, which Tallent could never close. Tallent was hampered by two cards for lifting and had to be careful near the end to avoid disqualification. Kirdyapkin’s victory atoned somewhat for the poor Russian showing in the 20K walk when only one of their walkers, Andrey Krivov, finished and he placed 37th, although 2011 World Champion Sergey Bakulin placed only sixth in this event. The bronze went to Chinese walker Si Tianfeng, which complemented the gold/bronze won by China in the 20K.

That was how the event and the results seemed to have ended. In 2015, however, the IOC began re-testing samples from the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics, using newer, more advanced testing techniques, in an effort to find those who had used performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), but in whom it could not be detected at the time of those Olympics. This was one of the many events affected.

All three Russian walkers in this event were disqualified for biological passport offenses. The original gold medalist was Sergey Kirdyapkin, whose disqualification was announced on 20 January 2015. Igor Yerokhin and Sergey Bakulin, who originally finished fifth and sixth, respectively, were also disqualified. The medals in this event were re-assigned to Jared Tallent (AUS / gold), Si Tianfeng (CHN / silver), and Robbie Heffernan (IRL / bronze).

All three Russians were coached by Viktor Chegin, who was infamous for his athletes testing positive for PED usage, which more than 35 of them did between 2005-15. On 17 February 2016, Chegin was banned for life from athletics coaching by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA).

PosNrWalkerNOCTimeWarnings
11064Jared TallentAUS3-36:532ORGold
21359Si TianfengCHN3-37:161Silver
32094Robbie HeffernanIRL3-37:540Bronze
41351Li JianboCHN3-39:011
52991Matej TóthSVK3-41:240
62665Łukasz NowakPOL3-42:471
72227Koichiro MoriokaJPN3-43:140
81903André HöhneGER3-44:262
91764Bertrand MoulinetFRA3-45:350
102359Park Chil-SeongKOR3-45:550
111170Ivan TrotskiBLR3-46:092
121724Jarkko KinnunenFIN3-46:250
132501Horacio NavaMEX3-46:591
142131Marco De LucaITA3-47:190
152670Rafał SikoraPOL3-47:470
163131Ihor HlavanUKR3-48:070
171618Jesús Ángel GarcíaESP3-48:320
182597Trond NymarkNOR3-48:370
191040Nathan DeakesAUS3-48:450
202508Omar ZepedaMEX3-49:140
211913Christopher LinkeGER3-49:190
221984Alexandros PapamichailGRE3-49:560
231035Luke AdamsAUS3-53:411
241607Emerson HernándezESA3-53:570
252499José Leyver OjedaMEX3-55:000
262091Brendan BoyceIRL3-55:010
272611Quentin RewNZL3-55:032
281755Cédric HoussayeFRA3-55:160
292787Marc MundellRSA3-55:320
301413Fredy HernándezCOL3-56:000
312360Im Jeong-HyeonKOR3-56:341
323125Serhiy BudzaUKR3-56:350
332066Basant Bahadur RanaIND3-56:480
341370Zhao JianguoCHN3-56:590
352355Kim Dong-YeongKOR3-57:330
362759Marius CocioranROU3-57:520
372712Pedro IsidroPOR3-58:590
381722Antti KempasFIN4-01:501
391631Mikel OdriozolaESP4-02:481
403243John NunnUSA4-03:280
411885Maciej RosiewiczGEO4-05:202
422389Igors KazakēvičsLAT4-06:470
432429Tadas ŠuškevičiusLTU4-08:162
441574Xavier MorenoECU4-09:231
452987Miloš BátovskýSVK4-09:320
462265Vitaly AnichkinKAZ4-14:090
471638Benjamín SánchezESP4-14:400
481814Dom KingGBR4-15:051
DNF2238Takayuki TaniiJPN1
DNF2650Rafał FedaczyńskiPOL0
DNF2949Nenad FilipovićSRB1
DNF2718João VieiraPOR1
DQ2807Igor YerokhinRUS[3-37:54][1]1
DQ2013Érick BarrondoGUA[3]2
DQ3133Oleksiy KazaninUKR[3]3
DQ2093Colin GriffinIRL[3]4
DQ1333Edward ArayaCHI[3]5
DQ2015Jaime QuiyuchGUA[3]6
DQ2244Yuki YamazakiJPN[3]7
DQ1572Andrés ChochoECU[3]8
DQ1749Yohann DinizFRA[0]9
DQ2801Sergey BakulinRUS[3-38:55][2]10
DQ2810Sergey KirdyapkinRUS[3-35:59][0]11