Laura Reynolds (Mohill AC) was disappointed with her 31st place in the 20k Race Walk on day four of the IAAF World Track and Field Championships in Moscow, Russia. The race started at 09.35am local time in hot and humid conditions. The Russian athletes on home soil were the favorites to take the title as 62 of the world best female race walkers took to their marks.
The large leading pack made a slow start to the race with all the leading contenders refusing to take on the pace. Reynolds passed through the 10km point in 45.40, sitting in around 35th position at this point. The Russian duo of Elena Lashmanova and Anisya Kirdyapkina began to stamp their authority on the field and pulled clear of the chasing pack with a little over 3km to go.
On entering the stadium Lashmanova had a comfortable lead over her compatriot and looked a cert for the title. However confusion over the lap count meant Kirdyapkina almost caught her on the line; none the less Lashmanova held on to win the world title in a time of 1:27:08.
Although Reynolds moved up a couple of positions in the last 10k she was ultimately disappointed with her performance. Reynolds finished in 31st place in a time of 1:33:39.
Commenting afterwards she said “I’m very disappointed with that, 31st place explains it all, wasn’t a good place wasn’t a good time, I don’t have an explanation for it. My last race in Kazan at World students I finished sixth, I was happy with finishing sixth. I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t recover, I just can’t explain why it went wrong. I’ll have to review this with my coach and see were to go.”
Ireland hopes will now turn to Olympic fourth place athlete Rob Heffernan (Togher AC) and Brendan Boyce (Letterkenny AC) who both go in the 50k Race Walk at 05.30am (IRL time) on Wednesday 14th of August.
