Jared Tallent admits he went for glory too early after winning silver in 50km walk

JARED Tallent described it as having a bear jump on your back. Unfortunately for the defending champion the bear arrived with four kilometres remaining.

Australia’s Jared Tallent after winning silver in the 50km race walk in Rio.

JARED Tallent described it as having a bear jump on your back.

Unfortunately for the defending champion the bear arrived with four kilometres remaining as he was within sight of the moment he craved - walking across the finish line first in the Olympic 50km walk.

Tallent had made a dash for gold at the 40km mark and at one stage opened up a 20 second break which looked to be enough until something changed with his legs.

They were gone. And so was his gold medal hopes.

“It feels like you have a bear jumping on your back,” Tallent explained. “You are pushing as hard as you can but you’re just slowing down, you look at the time splits every time you go through the banner and at the turn, and I was just dropping seconds and seconds each lap.”

Australia's Jared Tallent on the podium after being awarded his silver medal for the 50km walk.

The problem was he knew who was looming behind him, reigning world champion Slovakia’s Matej Toth.

“Getting up to the far turn I went through on the good lap in 5.17 and towards the end I was going through in like 5.40 and Matej was getting closer and closer,” he said.

“It was a real mental battle to hold on those last few laps. I thought the Japanese guy (Hirooki) and Evan (Dunfee), my training partner from Canada, was going to catch me.

“The last 500 metres was a real struggle.

“But just with grit and determination, I didn’t want to miss out on the podium. My legs were shot and I was just doing as much as I could to hold on.”

Everything had gone according to plan in the opening 40km after world record holder Yohann Diniz set a cracking pace, leading by more than a minute at half-way before collapsing.

“The whole plan was just to remain patient in the lead group, we thought (Diniz) would go off early and considering it was so hot, we were just hoping he would come back to us and fortunately he did,” Tallent explained.

Australia's Jared Tallent in the 50km race walk.

“Then I just wanted to walk with Matej and Evan the whole time and just give it to them in the last 10k and go for the gold then.”

Tallent, 32, admitted he’d make a mistake by not waiting an extra lap of the 2km circuit before making his dash for glory.

“I thought I had it,” he said. “I probably got a bit too excited. I was feeling really good.

“I was patient all throughout the race and then just when I needed to be a little bit more patient I went for it.

“I took off at 40k, I really thought I had it but I just ran out of legs with 4k to go. I saw Matej coming and I was trying to do everything to hold on.

“I really wanted to come down to the finish line in first place today, I had two laps to go and gave it everything but I’m really happy how I performed.

Australia's Jared Tallent (left) on the podium with his silver medal for the 50km race walk with winner Matej Toth of Slovakia (centre) and bronze medal winner Hirooki Arai of Japan.

“Three Olympics in a row I have been able to medal in this event.

“It would have meant so much to hold on and get the gold here as I wanted to be an Olympic champion for more than a few months but I just couldn’t do it unfortunately.

“I’m so proud of how I went, it’s just hard because I just wanted it at the end there.”

The margin on the line was 18 seconds with Toth winning in 3hr40.58sec from Tallent (3:41.38sec) with Japan’s Hirooki Arai third.

Victoria’s Chris Erickson produced a career best 3:48.40sec to finish ninth.

Originally published as Jared Tallent admits he went for glory too early after winning silver in 50km walk