Evan Dunfee cuts 8 minutes off P.B. in 50 km race walk

For more than three hours Saturday morning, Evan Dunfee chased a Canadian record that's a decade older than he is.

The 24-year-old from Richmond, B.C., raced to 12th place in the 50-kilometre race walk, falling off national-record pace over the final 6K in one of the most gruelling events at the world track and field championships.

"The wheels came off a little bit, but I still kept at it," Dunfee said. "This is my fourth 50K, I've blown up in all of them, but this is the one I've blown up the least in.

"I'll take the positive out of that and next time maybe try to blow up a little bit less," he added, laughing.

Dunfee crossed in three hours 49 minutes 56 seconds, shaving eight-and-a-half minutes off his personal best.

Marcel Jobin set the Canadian record of 3:47.48 back in 1981.

Slovakia's Matej Toth won gold Saturday in 3:40.32 with Calgary's Mathieu Bilodeau finishing in 31st.

Dunfee had competed in the 20-kilometre race walk only six days earlier, finishing 12th. Canada's Ben Thorne captured bronze in that race for the country's first medal in the event.

Dunfee, who spent much of the days in between either on the massage table or relaxing in compression boots, plans to do the almost unfathomable double again at next summer's Rio Olympics.

'Shoulders cooking'

The sizzling conditions Saturday morning, with temperatures soaring to 29 C, certainly were good practice. The walkers covered a two-kilometre loop that wrapped around the outside of the Bird's Nest Stadium. They doused themselves with water at every fluid station. A Japanese walker wore a singlet he'd clearly modified, punched with dime-sized holes.

"Conditions started off really comfortable, most of the course is in the shade first 15 to 20 K, but once that direct sun came on, I could just feel my shoulders cooking," Dunfee said. "So I just tried to get water on me as much as possible and stay wet, and do what I could. It warmed up, but it was nothing that we weren't used to."

Dunfee, who has two Canadian records to his name and Thorne, who set the Canadian 20K record here, are part of a young squad on the rise in an event that sees athletes compete into their 40s.

Dunfee kept pace with Spain's Jesus Angel Garcia for a large portion of Saturday's race — Garcia is 45-years-old, and was the world champion in 1993. Garcia would eventually pull away from Dunfee down the stretch to finish ninth.

The Canadian had hoped for a top-eight finish to contribute at least a point to what he called an "amazing team."

"This group doesn't settle for 'good enough,"' he said of the Canadian squad in Beijing — one of the most promising teams in perhaps decades. "I'm not settling for 'good enough.' I'll take the positives from it, but I want more."

Canada's race walk coach Gerry Dragomir, a world masters champion over 10K in 2010, said Dunfee was "looking as good as I've seen him" through 43K.

"And then those last three laps, you could see. . .the switch went and he was working on sheer nerve and intestinal fortitude," said Dragomir, who's coached Dunfee since he was 11.

Dunfee said he prefers the 50K to the 20K, because there's more time to think.

"I'm kind of a big nerd when it comes to this thing. . . I can plan it better, hitting the fuelling right, and there are so many more things that can go wrong and change your performance," he said.

Dunfee and walkers from other Commonwealth countries — they spend time training together in a collaborative effort between the teams — were heading out Saturday night for a drink in a "subdued celebration."

He'll race again next month and then head to Australia for five months to live and train in the run-up to Rio.