Rob Heffernan finishes 4th in the Olympic 50k race walk

Rob Heffernan finished an impressive 4th today in the mens Olympic 50k race walk in London. Not only was this a new personal best time for him but it bettered his own Irish national record of 3:45:30 set in Barcelona back in 2010. As you can see from the splits below, Rob picked it up in the later stages of the race while those ahead who went off too fast got disqualified and tired.

After the race, Rob said that he was heartbroken to come so close to an Olympic medal. He said the  crowd was amazing but there was nothing more he could do.

“I wanted to win an Olympic medal and I did everything I could. It’s hard to finish fourth after I dreamed all year about winning a medal in the Olympics. It’s tough coming away with fourth, but I’ll be happy with it. The crowd was unbelievable, even at the end, to hold off that Russian, I did not want to let anyone down.”

Also taking part in the race were Brendan Boyce and Colin Griffin.

Brendan set a new personal best time of 3:55:01 to finish in a very credible 25th place. His previous best time was 3:57:58 set in 2011.

Colin was disqualified after the 35 km mark after picking up his third red card. In a previous interview, Colin had mentioned that his slightly different walking style seems to make him stand out from other race walkers and the race officials pick up on this this. Alas, that seems to have been the case today despite the fact that he was putting in some fine splits during the race.

Just to put the time of Rob and Brendan in perspective, the Olympic 'A' standard for the 50k race walk is 3:59:00.

The Irish women are up next in the 20k.