by 20K he had expanded the lead to two minutes. Suzuki crossed the halfway point at 2:01:07 and, by 35K, Suzuki had opened his lead up to 3:34. Suzuki first showed signs of cracking, stopping at the water station at 44K before getting back on stride. At that point he still had two minutes on China's Niu Wenbin, an additional minute on Portugal's João Vieira, with the next chaser Canada's Evan Dunfee another minute back, now ahead of China's Luo Yadong. Suzuki struggled through the final lap while Vieira and Dunfee were applying the pressure. Both passed Niu, with Dunfee closing down his gap to Vieira. Suzuki got across the finish line first, only 39 seconds ahead of Vieira, who held off Dunfee by only three seconds. In its second appearance since the event's debut in 2017, the women's 50 kilometres walk began simultaneously with the men's. A lead quartet of China's Liang Rui and Li Maocuo with Italy's Eleonora Giorgi and Portugal's Inês Henriques crossed the 10K mark together, before Giorgi and Henriques dropped back. Liang continued to expand her lead with Li following comfortably ahead of Giorgi as the athletes reached 40K mark. Liang won the race in 4:23:26, more than three minutes ahead of her teammate Li, to become the first Chinese athlete to win the world title at that distance. Giorgi finished almost four minutes behind Li to win bronze. Combined Daily highlights Day one to three One final was contested on the first day: Kenyan Ruth Chepngetich won the women's marathon in 2:32:43, beating the defending champion Rose Chelimo of Bahrain in the first ever World Championships race to start at midnight. Braima Sundar Dabo of Guinea Bissau won plaudits for assisting competitor Jonathan Busby of Aruba to the finish of the men's 5000 m heats. A record 17 athletes qualified for the women's pole vault final. Cuban Juan Miguel Echevarría's jump of was the best performance in men's long jump qualifying for ten years. Christian Coleman had the first sub-10 run of the championships in the men's 100 metres heats. Athletics Weekly noted the lack of spectators on the first day and the difficultly in travelling to the stadium, while decathlon World Champion Kevin Mayer was highly critical: "it's a disaster, there is no-one in the stands and the heat has not been adapted at all...We haven't really prioritised athletes when organising the championships