María Pérez has kept a low profile since defending her 20km and 35km race walk titles at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo but the Spaniard is approaching form just in time for an assault on a second European title in Birmingham.
This will be the first time the half marathon race walk will have been contested in any major championships and Pérez will be looking to write yet another chapter of race walking history.
European record - Not yet established
European lead - Antonella Palmisano (ITA) 1:32:21
Championship record - New event
Rome 2024 medallists (20km race walk)
Antonella Palmisano (ITA) 1:28:08
Valentina Trapletti (ITA) 1:28:37
Lyudmila Olyanovska (UKR) 1:28:48
Five to watch
- María Pérez (ESP)
- Antonella Palmisano (ITA)
- Lyudmyla Olyanovska (UKR)
- Pauline Stey (FRA)
- Antia Chamosa (ESP)
Pérez, who won the 20km race walk title at the 2018 European Athletics Championships in Berlin, has only raced twice since Tokyo but she defied the hot and windy conditions at the Spanish Championships in Malaga to win the 10,000m race walk title in 42:12.93, a world lead and a national record.
The Spanish team will be quietly optimistic for a brace of medals in this event. Their triumvirate also includes Antia Chamosa who finished seventh at the 2025 World Athletics Championships, and was the second European finisher behind Pérez, and the youngster of the triumvirate Aldara Meilán.
Still only 19, Meilán won a breakthrough senior bronze at this distance at the World Race Walking Team Championships in Brasilia where she was also the first European finisher.
The biggest threat to the Spaniards is likely to come from the familiar figure of Antonella Palmisano who began the Italian gold rush at the 2024 European Athletics Championships with a brilliant victory in the 20km race walk, leading an Italian one-two in the Stadio Olimpico ahead of Valentina Trapletti.
As two of the standard bearers of European race walking over the last decade, Pérez and Palmisano have become very well acquainted with each other not just as rivals but also more recently as training partners, a collaboration which saw them win gold and bronze respectively in the 35km race walk in Tokyo last year.
"It's an honest and good rivalry that we have, and then we'll meet again in Birmingham and see what happens," said Perez on her rivalry and friendship with Palmisano.
Like Pérez, Palmisano has raced sparingly in 2026 but she does lead the 2026 European list with a 1:32:21 clocking in Podebrady.
Another experienced campaigner who will be in contention for yet another medal is Ukraine’s Lyudmila Olyanovska. She was unknowingly involved in one of the viral moments of the 2024 European Athletics Championships when she caught Spain’s Laura Garcia-Caro, who was celebrating with flag in hand down the home straight, on the line for the bronze medal.
Olyanovska won the 20km at the 2025 European Race Walking Team Championships in Podebrady last May and the 33-year-old was part of Ukraine’s gold medal-winning team at the World Race Walking Team Championships. Olyanovska was their second-counter in eighth with Hanna Shevchuk and Mariia Sakharuk seventh and tenth respectively.
Other possible medal contenders include European U23 10,000m race walk champion Alexandrina Mihai from Italy and the French duo of Clemence Beretta and Pauline Stey, the silver and bronze medallists respectively behind Olyanovska at the 2025 European Race Walking Team Championships in Podebrady.
The European record target time stands at 1:32:00 and has yet to be bettered in the nascent history of the event although Palmisano (1:32:21) and Pérez (1:32:51) have both come within one minute of this mark.
