Regan Lamble (Vic) and Claire Tallent (SA) finished 15th and 21st respectively in the 20km walk final, which was the only competition on day five of the IAAF world championships.
 
Lamble and Tallent maintained a decent position within the lead pack for the first seven kilometres, but as the morning humidity and temperature increased so did the tempo, and the three Russians began to stagger the group.
 
Defending world and Olympic champion Olga Kaniskina (RUS) eventually broke free to take the win in 1:29:42, followed by Hong Liu (CHN) in 1:30:00 and Anisya Kirdyapkina (RUS) in 1:30.13.
 
Meanwhile 19-year-old Lamble crossed the half-way point in 46:39 and 22nd position, a place she improved by seven within the last quarter of the race, to cross the line in 15th and a time of 1:33.38. Tallent also chased athletes down in the latter stages of the race, to finish in 21st and with a time of 1:34:46.
 
Lamble, who was making her senior Flame debut, said: “It was pretty warm, but was alright though. The sun was pretty bad but we had prepared well.
 
“I was a bit worried when the main pack got away and I was sort of floundering a little bit . Then in the second half I concentrated on trying to pick each person off one by one. I managed to pick off a few in the last three kilometres or so.
 
“Having people to pick off helped keep me going and helped keep my pace going. I was really pleased with how I finished the race.
 
“Our race plan was to just try and be competitive with the middle half of the field because this is my first race as a senior. I think I achieved that goal pretty well.
 
“I decided to try and not go out too fast. The pace overall, even with the lead girls, was pretty conservative at the start so that helped me settle in. After that I tried to just hang on if I could.
 
“When it’s hot most people tend to be conservative because you never know how the race is gong to go. We assumed it would be a relatively slow start and those girls picked it up towards the end, but we knew that was going to happen.
 
“I’m really happy with that performance. I think I took a lot out of that race and hopefully in the next few months can get fitter and stronger and make my way up the field and be a bit more competitive in my next few races.”
 
Tallent improved her performance from the last world championships, in Berlin, by six places. In Berlin Tallent clocked 1:38.12 and finished in 27th.
 
The Commonwealth silver medallist added: “It wasn’t too bad I think we prepared really well, when the pace kicked out it was hard to go but it was solid and felt steady the whole way. I felt pretty strong even though I couldn’t speed up, it was pretty good out there.”
 
Several Australian athletes are in action tomorrow, including Collis Birmingham, Craig Mottram and Ben St Lawrence in the 5000m, the men's 4x400m relay team and Kim Mickle and Jarrod Bannister in javelin.

Commonwealth Champion Fabrice Lapierre, and Robbie Crowther will join the Australian record holder and world-leader Mitchell Watt in the long jump.
 
“It’s good that we’ve got three guys out there and hopefully we can all get through to the final," Watt said.
 
“I think around 8.60m [will be needed for a gold medal], looking at past worldchampionships, high 8.50 or 8.60 is what you need and I think I can do that.
 
“It depends a little on conditions, if you look the women’s long jump wasn’t massive the other night. But we’ve worked the whole season to prepare me to jump my biggest jump at this competition.”

Athletics Australia