2017 World Championships in Athletics – Men's 20 kilometres walk

The men's 20 kilometres race walk at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics was held on a two kilometre course comprising lengths of The Mall between Buckingham Palace and Admiralty Arch on 13 August 2017.

The winning margin was two seconds which was also the winning margin in this event at the 2001 edition of these championships. As of 2024, these are the only two occasions where this event has been won by less than seven seconds at these championships.

Summary
As is typical, this race started off as a pack. By five km, the pack still numbered 32, exactly half the starters, walking a leisurely (for them) 19:54. The second five km was exactly the same, passed in 39:48 but the pack had worn down to 17. British champion, walking before the home crowd, accelerated the pace, dropping many off the pack. But out in front, Bosworth was given more scrutiny and earned the deadly red card disqualifying him from the race. By 15 km in 59:33 (19:45), the pack was down to eight and defending champion Miguel Ángel López (Spain) was no longer one of them. Rallying from a 23-second deficit at ten km, South African Lebogang Shange came back to the group as others dropped off. By the last two km loop, the leaders Éider Arévalo (Colombia) and Sergey Shirobokov, an Authorised Neutral Athlete were in racewalking's version of a sprint finish, dropping Shange, Christopher Linke (Germany), Dane Bird-Smith (Australia), Wang Kaihua (China) and Caio Bonfim (Brazil) to fight for bronze. Arévalo broke the race open enough to get a Colombian flag from the audience, holding it around his neck as he made sure he had enough of a gap on Shirobokov, then crossing the finish line with the flag held high two seconds ahead. Nine seconds behind them, Bonfim had broken away from Shange to secure bronze. Arévalo, Bonfim and Shange all set national records.

Records
Before the competition records were as follows:

The following records were set at the competition:

Qualification standard
The standard to qualify automatically for entry was 1:24:00.

Results
The final took place on 13 August at 14:19. The results were as follows: