Note: Single-source report; awaiting corroboration.
At the European Championships in Birmingham, María Pérez claimed gold in the women’s half marathon race walk, setting a world record with a time of 1:30:06 for the newly established distance. Pérez led from the start, initially racing alongside Italy’s Antonella Palmisano before making a decisive move at about 10km to build a significant advantage. She passed through 20km in 1:25:30, matching her own Spanish record, and finished ahead of Italy’s Alexandrina Mihai and Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Olyanovska, who took silver and bronze respectively. Pérez now holds two European titles, adding this to her 20km crown won in 2018, and also holds the world record for the 35km race walk.
Less than two hours later, 21-year-old Italian Sofia Fiorini set a new world record in the women’s marathon race walk with a time of 3:15:11. Fiorini was closely matched with Poland’s Katarzyna Zdziebło for much of the race before pulling away decisively with just over 9km remaining. Fiorini won by more than four and a half minutes, with Zdziebło setting a Polish record at 3:19:50, and Spain’s Raquel González taking bronze. Fiorini also improved her own European U23 record by over ten minutes compared to her previous best earlier this year.
The half marathon and marathon race walk distances were officially recognized by World Athletics from 1 January 2026. The governing body set performance standards for inaugural world records at 1:30:30 for the half marathon and 3:17:00 for the marathon. Pérez and Fiorini surpassed these marks by 24 seconds and 1 minute 49 seconds, respectively, thus becoming the first official world record-holders for these distances. The records remain subject to the usual ratification process.