Athletes

Martin and Perez deliver marathon race walk mixed relay gold for Spain

Home
  • News
  • Martin and Perez deliver marathon race walk mixed relay gold for Spain

World champions Alvaro Martin and Maria Perez teamed up to take the first ever Olympic Games marathon race walk mixed relay title, the latter crossing the line close by the Eiffel Tower in 2:50:31 after her anchor leg on Wednesday (7).

The innovative event – which replaced the 50km race walks and involves a team of two alternating legs of just over 10km to complete the classic 42.2km distance – delivered just the fourth ever athletics gold medal for Spain at the Olympics Games.

Martin and Perez, who each won both the 20km and 35km race walks at the World Athletics Championships Budapest ’23, follow in the footsteps of Fermin Cacho and Daniel Plaza’s Barcelona 1992 wins in the 1500m and 20km race walk, and Ruth Beitia’s high jump triumph in Rio 2016.

"It was the gold medal we were missing and we both got it together," said a delighted Perez, reflected on the fact that both she and Martin had previously been European champions but had both finished fourth in the Tokyo Olympic Games 20km race walk three years ago.

Martin added: "This was something historic, I wanted to jump and hug María [during the last lap] but I had to wait for her to cross the line first. I lost my voice from cheering María on. This is a source of pride for the entire [Spanish] race walk team."

The opening leg saw Paris 2024 20km race walk bronze medallist Martin walk steadily and come into the first change as part of a leading group of five, which at this stage also included Germany’s Christoper Linke, tagging Perez at 11.4km with the clock showing 43.32.

Perez clearly chose to walk conservatively as well during her first stint along the course which ran along the River Seine and the Paris 2024 20km race walk silver medallist finished her 10.4km leg in sixth place, albeit just seven seconds down on the Australian leader Jemima Montag who stopped the clock at 1:26:22.

The racing for the medals really started in earnest on the third leg with Martin quickly getting to the front and pushing the pace with Ecuador’s Paris 2024 20km race walk gold medallist Brian Pintado.

Just 4km into the third leg, Martin and Pintado had a seven-second advantage over the chasing group which carried on growing to 47 seconds by the final changeover at 31.4km.

In the last few hundred metres of his leg, Martin – after uncorking a super-quick 38:11 split – just edged in front of Pintado to give Perez a three-second advantage over her Ecuadorian counterpart Glenda Morejon.

Over the final 10.6km leg, Perez still had plenty in the tank and was not to be denied.

She quickly pulled away from Morejon, who was to hang on for silver, and walked superbly before eventually putting 51 seconds between herself and her South American rival, who had to tred carefully to avoid a time penalty with Pintado having accumulated two red cards during his leg.

Having done all the hard work over the previous nine 1km laps to secure an unbeatable lead, Perez was able to high-five many of the huge contingent of Spanish supporters lining the course as chants of “Campeones, Campeones,” - more often associated with Spanish football team successes - rang out and reverberated around the historic sights of the French capital.

Perez crossed the line in 2:50:31, the best time ever for this new event which made its debut at championships this year.

A distant third going into the final leg was Tokyo 20km race walk champion Massimo Strano who had separated himself from the rest of the chasing group and taken Italy into a medal position.

However, his fellow Tokyo champion Antonella Palmisano has been struggling for fitness this year, dropping out in the 20km race walk last Thursday, and she couldn’t hold onto her place.

Palmisano eventually drifted back to sixth although Italy were the second European team home as Australia, thanks to Montag, came through for the bronze medals.

Later on Wednesday morning, Poland’s Tokyo Olympic Games silver medallist Maria Andrejczyk led the women’s javelin qualifiers and bounced back from her disappointing 10th place at the European Athletics Championships in June, sending her implement out to 65.52m with her first throw to make it a short morning’s work.

Six Europeans will be in Saturday’s final, but two throwers surprisingly eliminated were Austria’s Victoria Hudson and Serbia’s Adriana Vilagos, the Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships gold and silver medallists.

Both athletes have thrown over 65 metres this summer and have set national records, lying third and fourth on the 2024 world list prior to Paris, but struggled to find their form on Wednesday morning.

Chaos reigned during two slow 5000m heats with both races seeing multiple fallers but, barely 15 hours after finishing in seventh and fourth in the 1500m final, Norway’s Narve Gilje Nordas and Jakob Ingebrigtsen managed to survive unscathed and win their respective heats in 14:08.16 and 13:51.59.

Five Europeans will be in the men’s high jump final including Italy’s reigning Olympic, world and European champion Gianmarco Tamberi.

However, Tamberi struggled during the qualifiers and could only clear 2.24m, failing three times at 2.27m and admitted later he is still not fully fit.

Earlier this week, he posted a picture on Instagram of him in hospital, apparently suffering from kidney stones, and he delayed his arrival in Paris, but he now has three more days to get back his strength.

“After what has passed this week, I’m just glad to qualify. My speed was not there on my run up. However, I often don’t do well in qualifying,” commented Tamberi.

Among the athletes who failed to make the final were Germany’s 2022 European silver medallist Tobias Potye and Ukraine’s two-time European Athletic Championships medallist Andrei Protsenko, who both failed their opening height of 2.15m.

Belgium’s Eliott Crestan, France’s 2024 European champion Gabriel Tual, Great Britain’s 2023 World Athletics Championships bronze medallist Ben Pattison and Spain’s Mohamed Attaoui were all impressive winners of their 800m heats and will look to progress to the final in Friday morning’s semi-finals.

Phil Minshull for European Athletics




Official Partners
Official Partners
Official Partners
Official Partners
Official Partners
Official Partners
Broadcast Partner
Broadcast Partner
Preferred Suppliers
Supporting Hotel
Photography Agency