The only way to understand Evan Dunfee’s crazy Olympic medal? Through his best friend’s Twitter timeline

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This article was published 06/08/2021 (1541 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The 50 km race walk is the Olympics’ take on televised torture. As wispy athletes put their hearts and hips and heels through agony for the guts of four hours, the rest of us watch on and wonder ‘how?’

Never has the question been more pertinent than in the final straight in Sapporo on Friday morning. Canada’s Evan Dunfee, having looked quite literally on his last legs in sixth place and drifting with 2 km to go, suddenly appeared on our screens, streaking down the closing stretch for a historic bronze medal.

Dunfee, a controversial fourth in Rio five years ago, roared a guttural roar of relief. But in front of TV and streaming screens across the country, the only sound was ‘how’? How could you possibly survey the chaos that had led the 30-year-old from Richmond, B.C. to have looked comfortable at 15 km, best in the field around 30 km, dead and buried at 45 km and fresh as a daisy in the final strides? The best way to make sense of the crazy, it turned out, was by scrolling through his best friend’s Twitter timeline.

Alyssa Koehn is an architect and urban planner. Her race walking experience …wouldn’t be extensive. But she’s a damn good friend. And having hyped up Dunfee, one of the most engaging, humble and funny athletes on Team Canada, two days out from what shaped to be a career-defining race, Koehn settled in mid-Thursday afternoon Vancouver time to tweet her way through it all.

“We met about three years ago and became pretty fast friends,” Koehn told the Star. “We have some very niche interests. Not race walking! That was not one of my niche interests. But like a love of urban planning and pedestrians complaining about cars. That kinda thing. We’ve just kind of stuck and we talk non-stop on text. He’s just become like a real staple in my life.

“I had posted a thread encouraging everyone to watch it that weirdly went kind of viral. A lot of my little niche urbanist part of the internet started messaging me saying they were going to watch. Friends from elementary school were messaging me saying this was so exciting. So I just felt like I had to keep it up. And then…it was just a lot of chaos and I couldn’t handle my emotions.”

To her credit, Koehn kept her emotions in check early on. Walks and talks with Dunfee had prepped for a lot of what was to come. So too had watching the 2019 World Championship 50 km walk, when Dunfee had also made the podium. Although, she streamed that from a “a questionable Polish/Russians stream” so it was not as informative as it might have been.

Nonetheless, she knew that much of the first half of the race or even first 30 km is about hanging in there until things get interesting. Dunfee hung back from early race leader Luo Yadong and looked cool and comfortable in the thick of the pack, or as Koehn has taken to calling it, the peloton.

As the pace picked up and the cameras focused more on the front dozen or so, Koehn moved to reassure new-found race-walking disciples among her followers that this was all part of the plan. She pulled out Dunfee’s Strava data charts for proof that being placed back in the mid-20s was just fine, even if he was rarely on their screens.

The event had been moved from Tokyo eight hours north to Sapporo to avoid the extreme heat in the capital but it was still stiflingly hot and humid early in the Japanese morning. Dunfee had been expecting to take in upwards of four litres of water in the race.

The temperatures were climbing when between the halfway point and the 30 km mark, Dunfee bobbed and sashayed his way to the front of the field. Koehn was the one feeling the heat.

Until she saw a familiar piece of headwear. “What’s so hard about some of these global streams is you don’t get to see the athletes that you know, that you’re looking for,” she said. “So to finally see that little red hat — the only red hat — kind of creep to the front was calming.”

Distractions had a calming effect too. There is no more fitting athlete-brand partnership on Team Canada than Dunfee and Kraft Dinner. The Twitter account for Canada’s “official, unofficial national food” was leaning into the action as the race reached its moving phase.

“That is the best social media person I’ve ever interacted with,” said Koehn. “They should get a raise.”

Dunfee briefly raced away from the pack and Koehn turned the caps lock ON hard. But eventual gold medalist Dawid Tomala made a more commanding burst, the Pole never looking back. Dunfee fell back from the front and began to drift. Afterwards he’d tell media he was asking his body for more but at the time wasn’t getting it.

Is robot an official nickname? “I think that’s just me, because I didn’t believe he was human for a while. He still has not convinced me that he isn’t. I think he might be a cyborg.”

By the last 4 km, the commentary team on the international feed were busy crowning Tomala and discussing a guaranteed all-European podium with German Jonathan Hilbert and Spain’s Marc Tur in second and third and clear of the rest — including Dunfee. With 2 km to go, the Canadian was still a full 20 seconds back of them as the cameras focus on the closing straight and finish line and little else.

“I was sitting there watching this second place German cross the line and was ready for Evan to have an incredible race but not the one he wanted,” said Koehn.

And then?

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“In that top right corner of the screen there’s movement. The first thing I saw was the purple shoes. Those little shoes! I knew they were his. Yeah. That was when I definitely screamed and probably scared my neighbours. I didn’t stop screaming and shaking for like a good 10 minutes.”

The caps lock never stood a chance. Koehn’s heart rate had been 83 bpm earlier in the race but hit 142 bpm as history was made. The cameras had missed so much of it but Dunfee later described how he asked his body one last time for a kick — and got it. He moved into fourth and then chased down Tur a couple of hundred metres before the line.

Koehn was busy preparing to get back to reality Friday morning when she spoke with the Star. But the buzz hadn’t nearly worn off. The 50km race walk won’t return to the Games in Paris in three years’ time. Dunfee’s timing was perfect in more ways than one.

“I’m so beyond happy,” she said. “This is the best result I could have imagined for him. Not just to win a medal, but to do it with the kind of drama, and glory and underdog style. It was perfect.”

Joe Callaghan is a Toronto-based sports and feature writer and a freelance contributor for the Star. Reach him via email: joecallaghan84@hotmail.com or follow him on Twitter: @JoeCallaghan84