Bird's Nest debut ends with Australian grabbing race-walking gold

BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The main venue of the Beijing Olympics debuted here Friday with an Australian race walker grabbing the gold of an IAAF race walking competition.

The 23-year-old Jared Tallent clocked one hour 20 minutes 11 seconds, was followed be a fierce Chinese competitor Wang Hao, who created his personal best at 1:20:25. Eder Sanchez from Mexico won the third place at 1:20:57.

Both Tallent and Wang were among the leading group in most time of the competition. After three laps inside the sports venue, with a monicker of the Bird's Nest for its interlocking frame and structure, the athletes competed along the park view boulevard surrounding the stadium.

"The stadium is fantastic and has been well prepared," said the joyous gold medallist. "It's my first international gold and I'm very happy to be the first winner of the new stadium."

"I was a little nervous when I was showed the foul yellow card in the second last lap outside," said silver medal winner Wang, an Inner Mongolian walker aged at 18, citing he was excited as walking back into the stadium.

All the medallists grumbled upon the concrete road outside the Bird's Nest in the competition. The bronze medallist Mexican said, "it's much harder to walk on concrete road than on tarmac, and I need adapt myself in preparing for the coming Olympics."

The IAAF Race Walking competition is one of the 42 test events before the Beijing Olympics in August. China sent the most athletes to the competition, which was also participated in by walkers from Australia, El Salvador, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Tunisia.