Yang Jiayu from north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region broke women's 20-kilometer race walk world record by finishing the competition at 1:23:51 in the national championships in Huangshan, east China's Anhui Province, on Saturday.

The previous record was created by Yang's compatriot Liu Hong in Spain in 2015. Liu attended the contest too, and she finished it at 1:24:27, which also beats her previous record. Qie Yangshijie was the third with 1:24:45.

The national championships also served as a qualification event for the coming Tokyo Olympics. Yang, Liu and Qie have all secured their spots in Tokyo.

Chinese athletes remain dominant in today's women's race walk event. Liu has the most glorious record of the three. She has won three World Athletics Championships titles and one Olympic gold medal. Though Liu once quitted to get married and give birth to her child after the Summer Olympics in 2016, she managed to come back and remains at the top level. Last year, Liu created a new world record by finishing women's 50-kilometer race walk at 3:59:15.

Yang won women's 20-kilometer gold at IAAF World Championships in London in 2017. She was competing with Liu and Qie in the World Championships in Doha, 2019. Unfortunately, Yang was ejected when she tried to catch up from the fourth place.

One fact must be pointed out that Elena Lashmanova of Russia finished women's 20-kilometer race walk at 1:23:39 and 1:24:16 in domestic events in 2018 and 2019 respectively. However, as the Russian Athletics Federation (RAF) has been under a four-year ban, it's unclear if Lashmanova's performance in domestic competitions counts.

That should not keep Chinese athletes from paying extra attention to their Russian counterparts, especially after a maximum of 10 Russian track and field athletes attend competitions in Tokyo in neutral identities.