Hurting hamstring can’t stop Dunfee
Bronze medal for Canadian in 50-km race walk
Canadian Evan Dunfee blasted through the final kilometre on Friday in Sapporo to brush past Marc Tur of Spain and win a cherished Olympic bronze medal in the men’s 50-kilometre race walk.
It was a brutally hot and humid race and it looked like Dunfee would have to settle for a second straight fourthplace finish at the Olympics, reminiscent of Rio 2016.
But he talked his hamstring into co-operating and, with mere metres to go, he walked right onto the podium.
“I’m stoked, I’m so happy,” Dunfee told CBC following the race, which was won by Poland’s Dawid Tomala, who broke away from a pack of 20 walkers at the 30-kilometre mark and never looked back. Jonathan Hilbert of Germany took the silver.
I DIDN’T KNOW IF MY BODY WAS GOING TO GIVE IT TO ME.
It looked like Tur would grab bronze, but Dunfee had more in the tank.
“I didn’t know if my body was going to give it to me in that last kilometre,” he told CBC. “I kept asking for it and my hamstring was a little tentative. It kept saying, ‘No, no, no.’ I asked one more time on that final bend, I asked just, ‘Please, just let it all out, let me get everything I have out of my body.’ And I thought about my parents, I thought about my grandparents, my nana, and just like that my hamstring went, ‘Yeah, OK, go.’ I felt them with me every step of the way there. My friends and family back home watching, like I felt them pushing me that last kilometre.”
It was the 20th and final 50-km race walk for the Summer Games.