New Olympic race walking event revealed

• By RubaiSport
• Posted Wednesday, April 12, 2023
• Updated Friday, April 14, 2023

World Athletics and the International Olympic Committee have agreed on the format for the new race walking team event that will make its debut at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games

World Athletics and the International Olympic Committee have agreed on the format for the new race walking team event that will make its debut at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The Marathon Race Walk Mixed Relay will feature 25 teams, each comprising one male and one female athlete, who will complete the marathon distance (42.195km) in four legs of approximately equal distance. Each athlete will complete two legs of just over 10km each, alternating male, female, male, female.

The event replaces the men's 50km race walk which had been part of every Olympic program since 1932 (with the exception of 1976). With this change, for the first time in history of athletics in the Olympics, men and women will have the same number of events.

The Marathon Race Walk Mixed Relay will be held on the same course as the individual 20km race walking events, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in central Paris, and will be completed in about three hours. The requirement of each athlete to complete two legs, will add an endurance component to the race. The event will be held on Wednesday 7 August 2024 at 7.30am, six days after the individual 20km race walking events launch the Paris Olympic athletics programme on Thursday 1 August.

World Athletics CEO Jon Ridgeon said: "We're excited to have another mixed relay on the Olympic programme to showcase the skills of both our female and male athletes in one event. This format is designed to be innovative, dynamic and unpredictable. We believe it will be easily understood by fans, will feature exciting competition and, importantly, it will ensure full gender equality across the Olympic track and field programme for the first time."

Olympic Qualification

A total of 25 teams will contest the Marathon Race Walk Mixed Relay at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

The qualification pathway for this new event will be published shortly. It should be expected that this new event will also feature as an addition to the 2024 World Athletics Race Walk Team Championships in Antalya, Turkey and that this championship may potentially be a qualification pathway to Paris 2024.

Potential medalists

By aggregating the current World Rankings for the top athlete from each country for the men's and women's individual 20km race walk, we anticipate the top 5 medal condenters for this new event to be:

Australia
China
Japan
Peru
Spain