A STEP AHEAD: CANADA’S BEST RACE WALKERS

Gerry Dragomir

He is the Vancouver-based coach of Canada’s top three male race walkers. The trio of Evan Dunfee, Ben Thorne and Inaki Gomez easily met the Olympic qualifying standard for Rio and keep raising the bar by breaking national records. Dragomir is an accountant who took up race walking late in life; he discovered he had an aptitude for it as an age-group athlete and even more for it as a coach.

Evan Dunfee

He started race walking to compete against, and beat, his older brother. Now the 25-year-old from Richmond, B.C., races the 20-kilometre event and the 50-kilometre distance, where he recently broke the longstanding Canadian record. Dunfee is a fierce defender of the sport, whether that means battling people who mock it on social media or exposing doping Russians long before the World Anti-Doping Agency ever did.

Inaki Gomez

Gomez wanted to be a swimmer, but as a teenager he was just too good at race walking thanks to his early upbringing in Mexico, where the sport is popular. He originally broke the Canadian 20-kilometre record at the 2012 London Olympics and the 28year-old, freshly out of law school, reclaimed it from his training partners in Japan this March.

Ben Thorne

Thorne started out as a cross-country skier and runner but was drawn to “this weird event” in high school, thinking this was something at which he could excel. The 23-year-old from Kitimat, B.C., surprised when he won a bronze medal at the 2015 worlds in Beijing; it was Canada’s first-ever race walk medal at the world championships.

Mathieu Bilodeau

The 32-year-old from Quebec City swam, ran, biked and cross-country skied before discovering the sport of race walking. He now trains in Calgary and has qualified for Rio in the 50-kilometre event. He’s racing the 20-kilometre event in Rome on Saturday at the IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships where he, Dunfee, Gomez and Thorne are hoping for a podium finish.

Rachel Seaman

Canada’s fastest female race walker holds national records in multiple distances. Seaman, 30, was formerly a runner who was talked into race walking after a coach saw her naturally good form as she made fun of her older sister in Peterborough. She was disappointed with her performance at the 2012 London Olympics but, after taking time off to have her daughter, she returned to the sport and says she’s faster than ever.