2011 European Race Walking Cup

2011 European Race Walking Cup
OrganisersEAA
Edition9th
Date21 May
Host cityOlhão, Algarve, Portugal Portugal
Events5
Participation218 athletes from
25 nations
Official websiteOlhao2011

The ninth edition of the European Race Walking Cup was held on the roads of Olhão, Portugal on 21 May 2011. The event was jointly organised by the Federação Portuguesa de Atletismo (Portuguese Athletics Federation) and the European Athletics Association.[1] A total of 222 athletes from 26 countries participated in the competition.[2]

Olhão won the nomination as the host city in November 2009, seeing off a rival bid from Spain's Santa Eulària des Riu. Although this was Portugal's first time hosting a racewalking event of this size, it became another high profile athletics competition to be staged in the Algarve region, after the 2000 IAAF World Cross Country Championships, 2003 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships and several editions of the European Champion Clubs Cup.[3] The city itself has, since 2001, played host to the annual Meeting de Marcha Atlética da Cidade de Olhão racewalking meeting, which has featured on the IAAF World Race Walking Challenge series.[4]

As in previous years, the competition featured five races: two 20 km walk competitions for men and women, a 50 km men's walk, and junior walks for men and women of 10 km each.[2] The course was a looped circuit on the roads next to Olhão's marina on the seafront of the Atlantic Ocean.[5] Russia and Italy were the dominant teams at the competition, taking three and two team titles respectively. Italian men took a sweep of the top three in the 20 km race while Russia's junior men completed a 1–2 finish to gain a perfect team score.[6]

  1. ^ Warbuton, Paul (2011-05-22). Nizhegorodov dominates, defends European Cup Walk title in Olhão. IAAF. Retrieved on 2011-05-30.
  2. ^ a b Final entries confirmed for Olhão 2011 Archived 2011-05-18 at the Wayback Machine. European Athletics. Retrieved on 2011-05-30.
  3. ^ European Cup Race Walking 2011 awarded to Portuguese city of Olhão Archived 2011-08-20 at the Wayback Machine. European Athletics (2009-11-11). Retrieved on 2011-05-30.
  4. ^ Fernandes, Antonio, Manuel (2010-02-21). Santos beats the conditions in Olhão – IAAF Race Walking Challenge. IAAF. Retrieved on 2011-05-30.
  5. ^ Course Map Archived 2011-05-28 at the Wayback Machine. Olhao2011. Retrieved on 2011-05-30.
  6. ^ 2011 European Race Walking Cup. Tilastopaja. Retrieved on 2011-05-30.