Australian wins first gold in Olympic stadium test event | Irish Sun

Australian wins first gold in Olympic stadium test event

Irish Sun (IANS) Friday 18th April, 2008

Beijing, April 18 (Xinhua) The first gold medal in a test event of newly constructed Beijing Olympics stadium, called 'Bird's Nest', went to Australian race walker Jared Tallent.

Tallent, 23, covered 20 km in 1:20:11 Friday, according to the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the organizer of the first Olympic test event in the newly constructed stadium.

Chinese Wang Hao, who created his personal best at 1:20:25, finished second followed by Eder Sanchez from Mexico at 1:20:57.

Three Chinese athletes swept the medals at women's 20 km competition.

Liu Hong, a 20-year-old walker from Guangdong province, won the contest at 1:29:33 only narrowly beating Yang Yawei. Shi Yang finished third. All of the three medalists are medal favourites for the Chinese national team for the Beijing Olympics.

Test events at the venue, which is scheduled to host the Olympics opening and closing ceremonies, track and field competition and some soccer games, will include another IAAF contest in May.

The IAAF race walking competition is one of the 42 test events in the run up to the Beijing Olympics in August.