Brought to you by Edward Ovadia who is in Berlin with official IAAF accreditation covering the championships for Runnerstribe.com

The mens 50km walk was the feature event on the morning of the seventh day, and was one of Australia's big medal events. We were well represented by Luke Adams and Jared Tallent. Tallent has a silver medal from the Olympics in this event, while Adams finished tenth. Both have the class to walk very well, and to finish amongst the medals.

Again the event would start and finish under the historic Brandenburg Gate, one of the only remaining gates into old Berlin. Tallent, after a sixth place in the 20km walk, was ready to claim a medal; and Adams was hoping to go better than his 18th place.

But they would not have it all their own way - the world record holder Denis Nizhegorodov of Russia would be the one to look out for, although we hadn't seen much of him in 2009, he was third in Beijing, and new how to perform when it counted.

Right off the gun, Adams went with the leader, while Tallent dropping back 11 seconds behind. But soon Tallent moved back up, and both Aussies were sitting in the lead pack., along with Nizhegorodov.

At the 15km mark, the lead pack was down to six, including both Aussies and Nizhegorodov. At halfway the lead pack was down to five, as Japan's Yamazaki was disqualified for a third warning. Two kilometres later and the pack is now down to four - two Aussies and two Russians (Nizhegorodov and compatriot Kirdyapkin.

And then suddenly the race was really on, and it was down to three. At the 30km mark, Tallent dropped the hammer with a 4:11 last kilometre, and slowly he put a gap of about four seconds on Nizhegorodov and Adams. Tallent held that gap for most of the next lap, until they regrouped, with Tallent still looking in control.

As the lap continued, the two Aussies started to walk side by side, with Nizhegorodov a few seconds back. And then, Nizhegorodov stopped to go to the toilet! He pulled up to a portaloo on the side of the road, and ducked in for 30 seconds. When he came out, the Aussies had built a good lead, and were walking side by side, with Nizhegorodov a long way behind.

And just like that, it was two Aussies first and second in the World Championships, with little over 15km to go, and with daylight third!

Slowly Tallent started to pull away from Adams, one second at a time, with Tallent looking very relaced and in control. Adams still holding his own very well, and holding off Nizhegorodov who was still a good 100m behind. Adams copped a yellow flag, which means 'keep an eye on your technique', but Adams is all class, and still no warnings for either of the Aussie pair.

The Germans have got a great system of counting down over the loudspeaker as the German athletes approach, so when they reach 'ten', the crowd favourite will be just coming through the Brandenburg Gate and passing in front of the crowd - and everyone erupts. But while the lead German (Andrew Hohne) is sitting in tenth, the Aussies are still out in front on their own, with Nizhegorodov still 25 seconds behind, and working with fellow Russian Kirdyapkin in a battle for third place and to try and catch the Australians.

Kirdyapkin has pedigree of his own, being the 2005 World Champion over the 50km distance. And the Russian is gradually pulling away from a tiring Nizhegorodov, who seems unable to respond. Tallent is also pulling away from Adams, who now has four seconds over the fellow Australian, with Kirdyapkin coming up fast. Adams has to watch out that he isn't caught, because Kirdyapkin is really moving.

But Tallent looks golden up front, and is ever stretching his lead further and further. Adams just picks up a warning for having a bent knee, but he still has two in the bank. His real problem is Kirdyapkin who has just caught the Australian - hopefully Adams can hitch on with Kirdyapkin and keep up. Tallent is still 12 seconds ahead of Adams and Kirdyapkin, who has just received a warning for loss of contact.

Coming into the 40km mark, Tallent had been caught by Kirdyapkin, who was going great guns, and started to immediately pull away from the Australian. Adams was still in third, but had to look out for Trond Nymark of Norway, who was also coming up fast behind the Aussie. Nymark was eight in Osaka and fourth in Helsinki, so he knows what he's doing. Meanwhile, Nizhegorodov pulled out, never looking 100% right after his toilet break.

Nymark went past Adams soon after the 40km mark, and was looking to catch Tallent, who had been left behind by Kirdyapkin. Nymark moved up on the shoulder of Tallent right on the three hour mark, and went past into second place. The Aussies had both been victims of late charges by the Norwegian and the Russian, and were now sitting in third and fouth. But there was still nearly 10km to go, had they gone too early? Could the Aussies regroup?

Tallent isn't easily beaten, and is still walking very well, as is Adams behind him. They both have Nymark in sight, and if he slips up, they're right there to pounce. Kirdyapkin now had 25 seconds up on Nymark in second, and looked to be every increasing.

With 6km to go, the order stayed the same, but Nymark looked to be struggling a little. He wasn't going as fast as when he made those great moves, and he was grimacing and struggling to hold down fluid without it coming back up. But he still seems to be increasing the gap over the Aussies. At 4km to go, Jesus Angel Garcia of Spain has caught Luke Adams, who moves into fifth, and Garcia is moving very well. Garcia, 40 years old, is a former World Champion from 1993, and was fourth in Beijing last year.

Going into the last lap, Kirdyapkin looked unbeatable in first, with a lead of 1:47 over Nymark, who was leading from Garcia of Spain, who had overtaken Tallent in third place.

And that's how it stayed, with Kirdyapkin collapsing over the line to take the win in 3:38:35, a new world leading time. Nymark managed to hold on for second, and was all smiles in the finish, with Garcia very close behind him in third. The Aussie boys Adams and Tallent struggled in the last lap, after giving their all earlier in the race, and finished a very gutsy sixth and seventh respectively.

Craig Hillard [Coach of Luke Adams]: "They're struggling at the moment, but both of them went out there to try and win the race. You're not going to do anything differently, it's time for Luke to make a stance and certainly Jared coming in as the silver medallist from Beijing, so tactically what Brent had discussed with Jared and what we'd talked about with Luke, that's how they were going to race. It was pretty tough out there. [Being in the lead mid race, could they have both got a medal?] Well you always hope, but it's 50km, and I've been around enough 50km races and so has Brent to know that the race doesn't start until 30km. So really what was going to occur from 30km to 40km was going to determine how the race was going to pan out. If they had got through to 42km or 44km feeling good, I think it would have been a totally different result. But they got to 40km and things were starting to struggle a little bit. But the attrition rate was high - it was hard."

Brent Vallance [Coach of Jared Tallent]: "[Same strategy of racing for the gold?] Yeah that's obviosuly what you want when you're a double Olympic medallist, they're not going to go out wondering whether they had it in them today. That was pretty much the plan, and he stuck to it pretty well, he was always looking back to see where some of the favourites were as they dropped off, so he was probably gaining in confidence after 30km, but tactically that was exactly how you race if you're going to win. Unfortunately the boys just didn't have it after 40km."

 

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