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Canada's Evan Dunfee sets new world record in race walking

Colton Pankiw
Colton Pankiw
|
Mar 22 2025, 5:19 pm
Canada's Evan Dunfee sets new world record in race walking
Kirby Lee/Imagn Images

Canadian race walker and Olympian Evan Dunfee set a new world record in the 35-kilometer event earlier today.

Competing at the World Athletics Race Walking Tour Gold meeting in Dudince, Slovakia, Dunfee clocked a world-record time of two hours 21 minutes 40 seconds (2:21:40). That broke the previous world record by a significant seven seconds.

Dunfee lead the race from the very beginning, lapping all 51 racers he competed against.

“Last month, coming off my 20 km PB in Adelaide, I had this idea of changing up my schedule and racing the 35km here in Dudince,” Dunfee wrote on X. “I was in great shape and maybe, just maybe I could take a shot at the World Record.

“A lifelong dream come true. An accomplishment that is owed in part to so many. But to name a few, this doesn’t happen without my family, Sara, Gerry, Marilou, Devon, Kirsten, and IƱaki.”

Dunfee has competed in three seperate Olympic Games; Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020, and Paris 2024. He picked up a bronze medal in the 50-kilometer event in Tokyo, though it was in Paris where he really made a name for himself.

Though he wasn’t able to medal in his most recent Olympic showing, he blew up after tweeting mid-event during the race walk mixed relay. After a blazing start in which he set a Canadian record, the 34-year-old shared a hilarious message on his X account.

“Full. F*cking. Send,” he wrote. “Canadian record through 10km. “Let’s see what I got for another 10.”

Though race walking is a life-long passion for Dunfee, he admitted in an exclusive interview with Daily Hive that his sport of choice often resulted in him being bullied while growing up.

ā€œI got ridiculed a lot, made fun a lot growing up as a race-walker,” Dunfee said. “I got into race-walking because I wanted to be the best at something and prove myself to the kids who picked on me.ā€

While not the most popular of sports, Dunfee has garnered some serious attention to the sport of race walking, not only with his tweeting antics during the Olympics but also his big successes. Today’s world record will only help add to that.

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