Representatives from the Chinese Athletics Association, China's General Administration of Sport and the Wuxi municipal government pose for a group photo after the press conference. [Photo/WeChat account: taicangdaily]

The 2018 World Race Walking Championship is set to take place from May 5 to 6 in Taicang, Jiangsu province. The announcement was made at a press conference on Jan 22.

Participants will be divided into an adult group and a youth group. Scheduled are races of 50 and 20 kilometers for adult men and women and races of 10 kms for younger male and female walkers.

East Shanghai Road in the city will be the event's two-kilometer circular racing track.

Two individual and team champions are expected to be produced from each group.

Mascots for the event made their debut at the press conference: Daomiwa (rice doll in English), dubbed Jinjin, and Yuwa (fish doll in English), dubbed Cangcang.

The two images show the city's profound cultural background and distinct regional features.

As the city is renowned as the barn (cang in Chinese) of the regions south of the Yangtze River and the land of fish (yu in Chinese) and rice (daomi in Chinese), the two cute mascots are based on images of fish and rice mixed with elements of water waves and sportswear to indicate race walking.

Yang Jiayu, 20 kilometer champion for adult women at the World Athletics Championships 2017, will serve as the event's promotional ambassador.

It is the second time that Taicang has organized the top race walking event in the world. The city hosted the Racing Walking World Cup in 2014, which is the predecessor of the world race walking championship and takes place every two years.