Ines Henriques will be contesting her ninth successive edition of the European Race Walking Cup on Sunday as a senior competitor but she will be lining up as a world record-holder for the first time in Podebrady
At the start of the season, the vastly experienced Portuguese race walker made history by becoming the first official world record-holder in the 50km walk. Henriques stopped the clock at 4:08:26 in Leiria - passing through 20km in 1:37:57 en route - to eclipse the previous world best by more than two minutes.
“We achieved the goals we were looking for which were to be the first Portuguese woman to race the distance and to set a world record,” said her coach Jorge Miguel after her groundbreaking performance.
Henriques has since turned her focus back to the 20km walk and in her last race, the 37-year-old showed she is rounding into form by clocked a season’s best of 1:32:15 at the IAAF Race Walking Challenge event on home soil in Rio Maior. She finished fourth in that race and just one place behind her teammate Ana Cabecinha, who has also been named on the team for Podebrady.
Henriques is yet to claim an individual medal at the European Race Walking Cup but she has been a reliable performer in the team competition. She was part of the gold medal-winning team all the way back in 2005 and helped Portugal to a silver medal in Dudince in 2013 and a bronze medal in Murcia in 2015.