2 min readThe average person’s walking pace: 3 miles per hour. Maria Perez’s: 8.33 miles per hour.
Or at least that’s the pace that the impressive Spanish athlete held while absolutely demolishing the 35-kilometer race walk record at the European Race Walking Team Championships, held in the Czech Republic town of Podebrady yesterday.
Perez finished the 21-mile race in 2:37:15, beating the previous world record by 29 seconds, set by Peru’s Kimberly Garcia back in March. She crossed the finish line more than 8 minutes ahead of the second-place finisher, Raquel Gonzalez, also from Spain. Teammate Cristina Montesinos finished in third.
“It is a nice feeling to finish the race, and the time is a big reward for this. I did not think of any time or any special target before the start, I just wanted to finish the best I could,” Perez told European Athletics. “So, the record time was definitely not my goal today. I am happy to do my best, and I am glad to see the race walk can be attractive and can attract such great crowds like in Podebrady.”
Despite difficult disqualifications at the 2022 World and European Athletics Championships, Perez, 27, has been one of the sport’s all-stars in recent years, taking home fourth place in the 20-kilometer walk at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 and winning that event’s gold medal during the 2018 European Athletics Championships. She’s currently a front-runner (or, shall we say, front-walker) for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Perez’s new record is also a point of pride for Spain, which hadn’t set a track and field record since 2008 when Francisco Fernandez broke the 10,000-meter race walk record.
Laura Ratliff is a New York City-based writer, editor, and runner. Laura's writing expertise spans numerous topics, ranging from travel and food and drink to reported pieces covering political and human rights issues. She has previously worked at Architectural Digest, Bloomberg News, and Condé Nast Traveler and was most recently the senior editorial director at TripSavvy. Like many of us, Laura was bitten by the running bug later in life, after years of claiming to "hate running." Her favorite marathon is Big Sur.
