Hard toil for SA in race walk final

Cape Town - South Africa's Lebogang Shange and Wayne Snyman finished in 44th and 58th positions, respectively, in Friday's men's 20km race walk at the Rio Olympic Games.

Men's 20km race walk results

A high school dropout and former farm labourer, Shange completed his campaign in a creditable 1:25:07, while Snyman's time was 1:29:20.

Only 63 of the 141 starters finished the gruelling competition, with more than half the field sidelined by attrition or disqualification.

Wang Zhen clinched gold with a time of 1:19:14, while countryman Cai Zelin took silver. Dane Bird-Smith of Australia secured bronze.

Great Britain's Tom Bosworth led for much of the race before fading to sixth spot, while the in-form Caio Bonfim recorded a Brazilian record - 1:19:42 - in finishing fourth.