MADRID, 5 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish men’s team has been proclaimed this Saturday world champion in the 35-kilometre walk at the World Team Walking Championships that is taking place in Muscat (Oman), with Álvaro Martín and Miguel Ángel López winning silver and bronze in the individual level , while the women’s team has been runner-up.
In the debut of the distance in a World Championship -which replaces the 50 kilometers-, the Spanish representatives started at the same time in a test in which Miguel Ángel López and Álvaro Martín managed to position themselves in the leading group, with Marc Tur, fourth in Tokyo 2020, somewhat behind.
The group passed kilometer 25 in 1:53:42, and in the next one it was broken after the Swedish Perseus Karlström, bronze in the Doha World Championship in the 20-kilometer walk, released the final attack, to which only López and Martín responded. . It was the rider from Extremadura who held up the pace of the Scandinavian the most, but he began to feel the blow at kilometer 32.
Karlström stopped the clock in 2:36:14, 40 seconds ahead of Martín (2:36:54), while López finished third (2:37:27). Finally, Tur finished eleventh (2:39:30) and confirmed the world title for Spain; Manuel Bermúdez was twenty-first (2:42:55) and Álvaro López, thirty-eighth (2:49:31).
In the women’s event, the team gold went to Ecuador, which also won the individual victory thanks to Glenda Morejón. The South American country was the only one that could prevent Spain from becoming champion in the two 35-kilometre categories.
Laura García-Caro from Huelva was the best of the Spaniards finishing fourth (2:52:10), while Raquel González’s eleventh position (3:02:44) and Mar Juárez’s thirteenth (3:04.54) allowed the team take the silver medal. The rookie Cristina Montesinos finished fifteenth (3:07:50) and Carmen Escariz was forced to leave after km 27.
These two medals are added to the two bronzes achieved on Friday in the U-20 men’s and women’s events.