Over the past eleven years, they have collected a combined seven Poděbrady victories. Sweden’s Perseus Karlström and Germany’s Christopher Linke will once again be present on the Spa Colonnade this year.
On Friday, May 8, the 94th edition of the international race walking meeting Poděbrady Walking will take place. The first announced stars are two walkers who traditionally perform well on the Spa Colonnade and enjoy returning here. For Sweden’s Perseus Karlström, this will already be his sixteenth appearance at the meeting. He first competed in Poděbrady back in the 2007 season as a youth athlete. The four-time World Championships medalist and European champion has crossed the finish line in Poděbrady as the winner four times.
The first of those victories came in 2016. He repeated the achievement four years later, and in 2021 he dominated here as part of the European Race Walking Team Championships. His most recent triumph came in 2024. “I like coming back to Poděbrady because it is a very well-organized race with a great atmosphere. The course is very fast and brings out the best in everyone. Everyone would like to stand on the podium here,” he says, full of praise for his favorite meeting.
Perhaps his most traditional Poděbrady rival is Germany’s Christopher Linke. He will be competing in Poděbrady for the twelfth time and has stood on the top step of the podium three times. In 2015 and 2018, he won the Poděbrady Walking meeting itself, and in between, in 2017, he celebrated gold at the European Race Walking Cup, a competition that preceded today’s European Race Walking Team Championships. At last year’s edition of that event in Poděbrady, he claimed silver in the 35-kilometer race.
This year, however, the two—along with the rest of the field—will face each other for the first time in a race walking half marathon, one of two new walking distances that will also be included in upcoming major championships.
