Richmond's Evan Dunfee has taken a bronze medal in 50-km racewalking, just 51 seconds behind the gold-medal winner Dawid Tomala from Poland, at the Tokyo Olympics.
This is Canada's first medal in the men's 50-km racewalking event.
In 29-degree heat, Dunfee was part of a large pack well behind Tomala during the last half of the race.
At the 40-kilometre point, the group was almost three minutes behind first-place racewalker Tomala, but the gap narrowed in the last leg of the race.
Dunfee had made it to fifth place at the 45-km mark, and in the last leg, Dunfee gathered his speed and passed Tur, who was fading, and captured the bronze medal with a time of 3:50:59.
Silver went to Germany’s Jonathan Hilbert who was 36 seconds behind Tomala, and 15 seconds ahead of Dunfee.
The fourth-place finish went to Marc Tur from Spain, just nine seconds behind Dunfee.
Dunfee just missed a medal at the 2016 Olympics, coming in fourth.
The competition started at 5:30 a.m. at the Sapporo Odori Park.
Canada’s second racewalker, Mathieu Bilodeau, finished 45th, 30:28 behind the gold medalist.
Final results:
Gold: Dawid Tomala (Poland)
Silver: Jonathan Hilbert (Germany)
Bronze: Evan Dunfee (Canada)
