China's Rui Liang smashed the women's 50-kilometre race walking record by over a minute at the IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships on Friday in Taicang, China.

🚨 WORLD RECORD ALERT 🚨<br><br>In her debut 50km race, Rui Liang of 🇨🇳smashes the world record to take gold in 4:04:35 in Taicang – that's over a minute better than Henriques' previous best. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IAAFworlds?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IAAFworlds</a> —@iaaforg

Liang's time of four hours, four minutes and 35 seconds beat the previous record of 4:05:56 set by Portugal's Ines Henriques.

Liang's closest competitor was fellow compatriot Hang Yin (4:09:09) who finished nearly five minutes behind.

Claire Tallent of Australia came third with 4:09:33.

In the men's race Canada's Evan Dunfee finished 12th in a season-best time of 3:50:18.

The Richmond, B.C., native was nearly six minutes back of Hirooki Arai's winning-time of 3:44:25.

"At 30 km I genuinely believed I was going to win a medal, and by 40 km I didn't know if I was going to finish. That's the 50 km though," said Dunfee in a social media posting.

"Lots of changes need to happen moving forward but for now, I'm going to try and not think about it. I need a break. I'm emotionally and physically defeated."

Evan Dunfee of Canada, seen passing a sponge to Japan's Kai Kobayashi, finished 12th in the men's 50-kilometer event at the IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships on Friday in Taicang, China. (Yifan Ding/Getty Images)

Arai's victory heralded a Japanese sweep with Hayato Katsuki (3:44:31) and Satoshi Maruo (3:44:52) finishing in second and third respectively.

Calgary's Matthieu Bilodeau finished 34th with a time of 4:05:02.

Arai was fourth at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, third at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio — where his bronze briefly went to Dunfee before he successfully appealed against his disqualification — and second at the World Championships in London last August.