Yohann Diniz questions logic behind decisions at Rio Olympics

JOHANN Diniz will be remembered as the man who soiled himself in Rio. Lucky him. But the athlete claims it should never have happened.

Diniz went to hell and back in the 50km walk.

THERE are probably plenty of people who have a hard time crediting walking as a real sport.

But that argument loses much of its credibility when you take a look at the 50km event in Rio over the weekend. Those 50km proved that walking is bloody tough when it comes time for the Olympics.

Australia celebrated as Jared Tallent won silver, but the real hero of the day was France’s Yohann Diniz.

The 38-year-old boasts the world record and has three European championships to his name, but those 50km in Rio were no doubt the hardest he’s ever had to go through.

He looked in a world of pain, suffered severe dehydration, appeared to soil himself after losing control of his bowels and collapsed on the track at least twice. But miraculously, he finished, in eighth place no less.

He was taken to hospital afterwards, and has since recovered.

Speaking to French media on Sunday (AEST), he gave an insight into just how much pain he was in.

Diniz was in a world of pain.

“I didn’t know where I was,” he said. “Straight away I had massive gastro problems, which quickly got worse and I started bleeding from the 12th kilometre.

“Obviously that took a lot of energy out of me. The body has to fight against that ... I really lost a lot of blood.

“I didn’t even know what direction I had to go on the road.

“I was in a lot of pain.”

In hot and humid conditions, 19 athletes had to retire from the race, which only puts Diniz’s achievement on an even greater pedestal. But he thinks it could have been avoided altogether, or at least had the risks minimised.

The Frenchman took aim at Olympic organisers for not scheduling the race to start late in the afternoon so they could avoid the hottest part of the day. Instead, it started in the early morning at around 8am local time.

“Why can’t we make the race at the end of the afternoon, when you know that it will be cooler?” he said.

“In Brazil, after 4pm, you know that it starts to become cooler. But if the athlete was at the heart of the Olympic Games, we would know that anyway.”

how he managed to complete 50km is anyone’s guess.

He went on to explain how French team officials begged him to stop the race, but he refused out of sheer bloody minded-ness. He admitted at around the 40km mark he had absolutely no idea how he was going to finish, but he was immensely proud of making it to the end, even if it was without a shot at grabbing a medal.

He finished in three hours, 46 minutes and 43 seconds. Aussie Chris Erickson wasn’t far behind, coming tenth with a time of 3:48.30.

Although he’s left hospital, Diniz says he’s still dehydrated and needs to drink plenty of fluids. His legs and head are no longer worrying him, though.

There was plenty of widespread admiration for the determined walker, but he did have a special message for anyone out there who wanted to make fun of his health problems during the race.

“If people think that, I couldn’t care less. What am I supposed to do, drop my pants in the middle of the road?”