Kenya’s Samuel Gathimba caught everybody off guard with a brilliant display of speed walking to win the 20km race walk at the African Championships in Durban in 1 hour 19 minutes and 24 seconds.
Tunisia’s Hassanine Sebei was second with the South African record holder, Lebogang Shange, third in 1:21:41.  Wayne Snyman (SA) was fourth in 1:22:22.

Gathimba’s performance is world class. His winning time is the 8th fastest time of the season. If he had walked 1:19:24 at the World Championships in Beijing last year he would have won the silver medal.
The two South Africans described Gathimba’s performance as outstanding.
“As a race walker you are lucky if you are able to perform like this once a year,” said Snyman, who is sponsored by HPC.

“I will be honest. I did not think Gathimba would be able to keep up such a fast pace. After 10 kilometres we were told to just hang in there, on the assumption that he would get tired.”
According to Shange (HPC) he tried to stay with Gathimba at first.

“But when he completed the first kilometre in 3 minutes and 15 seconds and continued walking at basically the same speed over the second kilometre, I realized that it would be a mistake to try to keep up with him. So I settled down and walked at a pace with which I was more comfortable.
“Hats off to Gathimba he fully deserved to win.”