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Wang wins gold in another controversial Olympic walk
SYDNEY, Sept 28 (AFP) - China's Liping Wang became the first women's 20 kilometre walk Olympic champion on Thursday, taking the title by a process of elimination as three race leaders ahead of her were disqualified in the closing stages. Local favourite, Jane Saville, saw the gold medal grabbed from her grasp as she was stopped no more than 200m from the finish. Wang was timed at 1hr 29min 04sec, while the silver medal went to Norway's Kjersti Plaetzer (1:29:33) and bronze to Spain's Maria Vasco in 1:30:23. Yet none of the medallist would have won any prizes on their placings barely 5km out from the finish. Saville could hear the crowd's roar of anticipation of another Australian Olympic success as she entered the tunnel to take her onto the track when she was shown the referee's red card for a disqualification. The the 1998 Commonwealth champion was clearly devastated. She knew she had to walk a fine line over the final three kilometres of the race, as she had already received two judges' warnings and had witnessed two of her rivals pulled out for "lifting" -- losing constant contact with the ground. At a Games rocked by drug scandals, race walking remains the one Olympic event where you can clearly see who is cheating. In a gruelling battle at the front, the leading pack had been whittled down by the three-quarter distance to the three who would be expected to contest the medals. Forcing the pace at the front was Elisabetta Perrone, the Italian silver medallist in the women's walk at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics --when the distance was only 10km -- Saville, and China's 1999 world champion, Hongyo Liu. In a frantic five-minute spell just after an hour's racing, first Liu was disqualified and taken off the race route, where she bent over a road barrier and sobbed. In the next dramatic development, Perrone received two warnings and a final red card when seemingly set for gold, leading Saville by 10 metres. The men's 20km walk earlier in the week also ended in controversy, when Bernardo Segura, of Mexico, thought he had won the gold medal, only to be informed 11 minutes after crossing the finishing line that he had in fact been disqualified.
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