World record annulled in women's race walk due to erroneous route at Pan American Games

In a bizarre outcome, timings attained by the women's race walkers were repealed at the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, after the course of the race was found to be 3km short of the required 20km.

Paris Olympics berths were up for grab at the event. As a result of this organisational mess-up, all the athletes were denied an Olympic qualifying opportunity.

Eyebrows were raised when the top 12 athletes running the race clocked timing well below the world record (1:23:49 seconds) held by Yang Jiayu of China since 2021. They also comfortably finished the race well inside the Olympic entry standard of 1:29:20s.

Kimberly Garcia, the former world champion of Peru, won the gold medal by clocking a stunning 1:12:26s, 11 minutes quicker than the standing world record of Jiayu. But her world record-breaking timing was omitted from the official record because of the mismeasured route. Garcia has already qualified for the Paris Olympics though.

Ecuador's Glenda Morejon and Peru's Evelyn Inga won the silver and bronze medals.

It was the athletes who revealed that the route through the streets of the Chilean capital and O'Higgins Park was around 3km shorter than the mandated 20km, prompting organisers to hastily remeasure the course for the men's race.

With a chance to earn automatic qualification to the Olympics through attaining qualifying mark and World Athletics ranking points going repealed, athletes were deeply frustrated with the outcome.

"It didn’t affect myself alone, I wanted the Pan American record," Garcia said after the race.

"Other girls wanted a spot in the Olympic Games. It is a shame that will not happen because the weather, everything was fit for good timings," she added.