A strong European contingent will head to Brasilia for the Caixa World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships on 12 April.
This will be the first time the new race walking disciplines, the half marathon and marathon race walks, will be held in a major event and will offer an excellent opportunity for race walkers to gain experience at the new disciplines as well as chase qualifying times for the Birmingham 2026 European Athletics Championships from 10-16 August.
And it is possible the first European records might be set at the new distances in Brasilia. The target times for European records are 1:23:00/1:32:00 for the men’s and women’s half marathon and 3:00:00/3:23:00 for the marathon.
Who is competing?
All three medallists from the men’s 20km race walk at the 2024 European Athletics Championships in Rome feature on the final entries.
Sweden’s Perseus Karlström will step up in distance to contest the marathon race walk while Spain’s Paul McGrath and Italy’s Francesco Fortunato will be among the leading Europeans in the half marathon race walk.
One of Karlström biggest rivals in the marathon race walk will be Italy’s Massimo Stano who will make his debut at the new event. Stano broke the world record in the now-defunct 35km race walk at the 2025 European Race Walking Team Championships in Podebrady with 2:20:43 but he was forced to miss the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo due to injury.
Stano is one of five individual champions from the 2025 European Race Walking Team Championships who are due to compete. McGrath and Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Olyanovska, both of whom won the 20km race walk, have entered the men’s and women’s half marathon while U20 winner Giuseppe Disabato from Italy and Spain’s Sofia Santacreu are due to make their respective senior debuts in the half marathon as well.
In the women’s marathon race walk, Italy’s Sofia Fiorini is among the leading European entrants. She holds the European best for the new event with 3:27:19 which puts the European record target time of 3:23:00 into view.
There will also be high hopes for Italian race walkers in the U20 events. 2024 European U18 5000m race walk champion Alessio Coppola is among the leading entrants in the men’s 10km race walk while Serena Di Fabio is the second fastest athlete on the entry-list for the women’s 10km race walk, one place and one second behind France’s Chloe Le Roch.
Some of the few notable absentees from the final entries include double world champion Maria Perez from Spain and 2024 European 20km race walk champion Antonella Palmisano from Italy.
The full entry-lists can be found here.
What happened last time?
At the 2024 World Athletics World Race Walking Team Championships in Antalya, Europe won four gold medals in total.
On the road to the 2024 European Athletics Championships, Karlström won the 20km race walk title ahead of Spaniards Paul McGrath and Diego Garcia who led Spain to the team title ahead of Japan and Italy.
Thanks to Aldara Meilan and Sofia Santacreu winning individual silver and bronze medals respectively, Spain also won the women’s U20 10km race walk team title while Francesco Fortunato and Valentina Trapletti combined to win the mixed marathon race walk relay for Italy.