Race walker Diniz becomes oldest world champion at 39

Yohann Diniz produced an astonishing solo tour de force to become the oldest man ever to become a world athletics champion at the age of 39 as he won the 50- kilometer walk title on Sunday.

The French world record holder, one of the great figures of race walking, produced the second- fastest walk in history, 3 hours 33 minutes 12 seconds – a time only he has bettered – with arguably the performance of the entire IAAF World Championships.

Diniz was so dominant en route to his long- awaited first global title that he lapped nearly all the 43- strong field over the 2- kilometer looped circuit on The Mall, finishing less than a minute adrift of his 3- year- old world record of 3: 32: 33.

He was even able to take a swift comfort break when leading in the first 15 minutes before rejoining the race and destroying his opponents over the 25 laps between Admiralty Arch and Buckingham Palace.

He blew kisses toward Buckingham Palace on the last circuit, turning it into a glorified lap of honor, and finished by approaching the line while hoisting aloft a French tricolor he had grabbed from the crowd to celebrate his new championship record.

His 8- minute gap over his two distant Japanese pursuers, silver medalist Hirooki Arai ( 3: 41: 17) and bronze medalist Kai Kobayashi ( 3: 41: 19), was by far the biggest- ever recorded in the championships.

Diniz became the oldest male world champion in any event, surpassing another walker, 37- year- old Veniamin Soldatenko. The Soviet athlete won a specially staged 50- kilometer event in Malmo in 1976, seven years before Helsinki staged the first global championships.

Belarussian Ellina Zvereva holds the overall record of being the oldest world champion, having won the women’s discus in 2001 at the age of 40.

Diniz’s triumph, the firstever in race walking by a Frenchman, came a year after his heartbreak in the Rio Olympic final when he led by nearly 2 minutes before he collapsed at 37 kilometers with heatstroke, dehydration and gastric problems.

He was then hailed as a hero as he got up, insisted on continuing and, incredibly, finished the race in eighth place.

His familiar all- or- nothing approach, trying to break the field from the gun, had seen the three- time European champion miss out on global titles before but for a man also famed for being an expert in winemaking, this was a champagne moment.