European Athletics Championships 1978/20 km walking men

12th European Athletics Championships
discipline	Men's 20km walk
city	Prague , Czechoslovakia today Czech Republic
place	Circuit through Prague
Attendees	29 athletes from 14 countries
Competition phase	August 30th
Medalist
gold	Roland Wieser ( GDR )
silver	Pyotr Pochinchuk ( URS )
bronze	Anatolij Solomin ( URS )

Prague in the panorama picture

The men's 20 km walk at the European Athletics Championships 1978 was held on August 30, 1978 in the streets of Prague .

In this competition, the Soviet Union won two medals, silver and bronze. The European champion was GDR walker Roland Wieser , who set a new world record. He won ahead of Pyotr Pochinchuk . Bronze went to Anatolij Solomin , who shortly before had become the owner of the now improved world record.

Records / best performances

Existing records

World record	1:23:30 h	Anatoly Solomin	Vilnius , Soviet Union (now Lithuania )	July 19, 1978
European best time
EM record	1: 27: 20.2 h	Nikolai Smaga	EM in Budapest , Hungary	August 30, 1966

Note:
At that time, records were not kept in marathon running and street walking because of the different track conditions with the exception of championship records.

Record improvement

European champion Roland Wieser improved the existing championship record on August 30th by 4: 08.7 minutes to 1: 23: 11.5 hours and at the same time set a new world record.  

execution

There was no preliminary round, all 29 walkers went to the final together.

Result

Hartwig Gauder (far right in 1994) finished seventh - in the further course of his career he achieved great successes, including Olympic champion in 1980 , European champion in 1986 , world champion in  1987

Dominique Guebey did not finish in this competition

The 1976 Olympic gold medalist Karl-Heinz Stadtmüller (right) was disqualified as he had been four years earlier

August 30, 1978, 6:30 p.m.

space	Surname	nation	Time (h)
1	Roland Wieser	GDR	1: 23: 11.5 WBL
2	Pyotr Pochinchuk	Soviet Union	1: 23: 43.0 PB
3	Anatoly Solomin	Soviet Union	1: 24: 11.5
4th	Borys Yakovlev	Soviet Union	1: 24: 27.9 PB
5	José Marín	Spain	1: 24: 38.1 SB
6th	Maurizio Damilano	Italy	1: 24: 57.5 SB
7th	Hartwig Gauder	GDR	1: 25: 15.7 SB
8th	Roberto Buccione	Italy	1: 25: 40.9 PB
9	Bohdan Bułakowski	Poland	1: 25: 56.8 PB
10	Bo Gustafsson	Sweden	1: 26: 13.2 PB
11	Gérard Lelièvre	France	1: 26: 42.3 SB
12	Alessandro Pezzatini	Italy	1: 26: 44.2 SB
13	Juraj Benčík	Czechoslovakia	1: 27: 47.4 PB
14th	Svetozár Blažek	Czechoslovakia	1: 27: 48.3 PB
15th	Lucien Faber	Luxembourg	1: 29: 19.7 SB
16	Stanislaw Rola	Poland	1: 29: 22.0 PB
17th	Imre Stankovics	Hungary	1: 29: 33.3 PB
18th	Štefan Petrík	Czechoslovakia	1: 30: 08.4 PB
19th	Owe Hemmingsson	Sweden	1: 30: 44.2 PB
20th	Alfons Schwarz	BR Germany	1: 31: 17.6 PB
21st	Roger-George Mills	Great Britain	1: 31: 52.5 PB
22nd	Yancho Kamenov	Bulgaria	1: 32: 08.9 PB
23	Erling Andersen	Norway	1: 32: 13.0 SB
24	Alf Brandt	Sweden	1: 32: 41.7 PB
25th	Brian Adams	Great Britain	1: 33: 08.2 SB
26th	Amos Seddom	Great Britain	1: 34: 17.8 SB
27	Knut Arne Strømøy	Norway	1: 36: 01.9 PB
DNF	Dominique Guebey	France
DSQ	Karl-Heinz Stadtmüller	GDR

Web links

• European Athletics Championships - Prague 1978 at european-athletics.org, accessed August 1, 2019
• Men 20km Walk European Championship 1978 Prague on todor66.com, accessed June 25, 2019
• Track and Field Statistics, EM 1978 on trackfield.brinkster.net, accessed August 1, 2019
• European Athletics Championships Zurich 2014 - Statistics Handbook , Men 20km Walk European Championship 1978 Praha, p. 431 (PDF, 13,363 kB), Spanish / English at european-athletics.org, accessed on August 1, 2019
• Results of all European Athletics Championships - 1978, 20 km walking men on sportschau.de, accessed on August 1, 2019
• 12th European Athletics Championships 1978 in Prague, Czechoslovakia from ifosta.de, accessed on August 1, 2019

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF world records. 20 km walking men , accessed August 1, 2019