Evan Dunfee makes history as world champion in 35km race walk
It took just one event for Canada to win its first gold medal at the 2025 World Athletics Championships.
Evan Dunfee delivered a most impressive performance to win the world title in the men’s 35km race walk, the opening event of the world championships which began on Saturday in Tokyo. He earned the victory in a time of 2:28:22, finishing 33 seconds ahead of runner-up Caio Bonfim of Brazil. Japan’s Hayato Katsuki, who had led the race through the first 26 kilometres, took the bronze in 2:29:16.
“It’s a dream come true. It’s 25 years in the making,” said Dunfee, who is Canada’s first ever world champion race walker. “Gerry [Dragomir], my coach, and I, we sat down when I started doing this thing. How big can we dream? And it was like, well, world records and gold medals.”
For most of the race, Dunfee was back in fourth and fifth place, about half a minute behind the lead pack. Competing in his seventh world championships, the 34-year-old made his move towards a podium finish with less than eight kilometres to go. After quickly getting himself into second place, he took the lead with two kilometres remaining.
But there was more drama on the final lap as Dunfee stopped for a moment and appeared to shake out his hamstring. He pushed through the obvious pain and, as he entered the stadium, grabbed a Canadian flag that he held proudly above his head as he crossed the finish line.
“The hardest thing I’ve ever done. That last 2k was agonizing and I was just having to channel all of the people back home, people here who are part of my support team, who believe in me so so much, channeling them to get through one more step, one more step. That last 2k, I’ve never been in that much pain in my life and came into the stadium and thought ‘okay, I think we can maybe do this’,” said an emotional Dunfee.
Dunfee broke the world record in the 35km race walk this past March, setting the standard of 2:21:40. That mark was smashed two months later by Italian Massimo Stano, who was world champion in 2022. Stano was unable to compete at the world championships because of a hamstring injury.
This is Dunfee’s second career world championship medal, following his bronze in the 50km race walk in 2019. Two years later, he won Olympic bronze in the event—the last time it was featured at a major global meet. Dunfee didn’t get to race through the streets of Tokyo then because concerns about the summer heat led organizers to hold the road events in athletics in Sapporo.
Dunfee will race one more time at the worlds, in the men’s 20km race walk next Saturday. He finished fifth in that event last summer at Paris 2024.
