Matthew Forgues Finishes Second In 50K Race Walk, But Doesn't Meet Olympic Standards To Officially Qualify For Olympics

BALTIMORE, Md. – Former Goucher College cross country runner Matthew Forgues and 2014 graduate has not officially qualified to represent the United States at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, but he is still in the running to earn a spot on the team.

Needing to finish in a time of three hours and 50 minutes to officially clinch a spot on the USA Olympics team in the 50k Race Walk, Forgues posted a career-best time of four hours, 14 minutes and 44 seconds to finish second. He finished two minutes and 33 seconds behind the winner and ran the race with an eight minute and 12 seconds pace per lap.

Despite not officially qualifying for the Olympic team, Forgues will represent the United States for the World Athletics Race Walking Team Championship in Minsk, Belarus on May 2-3. He will have several more opportunities to hit the qualifying time to automatically qualify for the Olympics.

Forgues improved his finish at the United States National Championships in the last three years. He finished third in 2017, second in 2018 and won the event last year. Last year, he also finished fifth at the Pan Am Games where he established a personal-record time that he broke on Saturday at the trials. 

Forgues looks to siege the opportunity in 2020 after finishing fourth and just missing the cut for the 2016 Olympic Games.

Forgues, who came to Baltimore from Boothbay, Maine, was a member of the Goucher cross country team for his senior campaign of 2013. He studied abroad while at Goucher in Santiago, Chile where he competed in the Santiago Marathon. After graduation, he went to teach on an Indian reservation, Standing Rock, in North and South Dakota. There, he rekindled his love of race walking.