Liu Hong (racewalker)

Liu Hong (simplified Chinese: 刘虹; traditional Chinese: 劉虹; pinyin: líu hóng; born 12 May 1987 in Anfu, Jiangxi) is a Chinese female race walker. She is the world record holder over the Olympic 20 km distance with a time of 1:24:38 hours, set in 2015. Liu won medals at the World Championships in Athletics in 2009, 2011 and 2013; She placed fourth at the Summer Olympics in both 2008 and 2012, Liu is the 2016 Olympic 20 km racewalking gold medalist.

Liu is a two-time gold medallist at the Asian Games (2006 and 2010). She was the runner-up at the IAAF World Race Walking Cup in 2014. In her early career, she was the World Junior Champion in 2006.

She first came to prominence by winning the World Junior and Asian Games titles in 2006. After a poor global debut at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics (19th), she rebounded with a fourth-place finish at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. However, since Russia's Olga Kaniskina was disqualified in March 2016 for doping, Liu is expected to be awarded the bronze medal. She secured her first major medal at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics, taking the bronze medal. Later that year she took the national title at the 11th Chinese National Games.

Liu retained her title at the 2010 Asian Games and broke the Games record with a time of 1:30:06 hours. She opened her 2011 season with a win on the 2011 racewalking circuit at the Memorial Mario Albisetti. She followed this with a win in Taicang, equalling her personal best in the process. A third circuit win came in Dublin that year. She won the silver medal at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, beaten only by Olga Kaniskina who won her third straight title. Liu broke the Asian record for the 20 km walk in Taicang in 2012, defeating Wang Yan's decade-old record with a time of 1:25:46 hours.

She missed out on a medal at the 2012 London Olympics, placing fourth behind Qieyang Shenjie, who also broke her Asian record. Liu won at the 2012 IAAF World Race Walking Challenge Final, however, and defeated Qieyang en route to breaking Jin Bingjie's 22-year-old Asian record for the 5000 m walk at the Chinese University Games. She set an event record in her first race of 2013, winning the Memorial Albisetti in a time of 1:27:06 hours.

She broke the world record for the 20 km walk at the Gran Premio Cantones de La Coruña. Taking advantage of warm conditions, she completed the distance in 1:24:38 hours, walking the second 10 km faster than the first, to improve the world record by 24 seconds. This was the fastest time ever, also beating Olimpiada Ivanova and Olga Kaniskina's times that were not ratified as records due to a lack of international judges.

After testing positive for higenamine in May 2016, she was banned from June 13 to July 13, 2016.

She won the gold medal with 1:28:35 in women's 20 km walk at Rio Olympic Games on 19 Aug. 2016.