At age 33, the brilliant racewalker from Ecuador, named for the third president of the United States, on Sunday became the first three-time champion over the 20-kilometer distance at the IAAF world championships.

"Sure, it's very, very nice to win for a third time, but, you know, before the race you cannot think of such things," said Perez, so beloved in his nation as its first and only Olympic champion (1996) that he's already been awarded a lifetime pension and appeared on postage stamps.

It was Perez's third major victory of the 2007 season--following wins in the Pan-American Cup and Pan-American Games--and he took control three-quarters of the way through the race, which started at 8 a.m. on the track at Nagai Stadium, looped around an adjacent two-kilometer road course nine times, and finished back on the stadium track.

It took him 1 hour 22 minutes 20 seconds to become a three-peater and he won it with "negative splits" of 42:31 and 39:49. He blazed the final 5 kilometers in 19:49.

Despite the early morning start, the heat and humidity posed problems and he was nowhere near his own world record of 1:17:21, set at the 2003 world championships in Paris, or his winning time of 1:18:35 at Helsinki in 2005.

"Today, I raced like a rookie," said Perez. "I made mistakes. There were many other good walkers in the field. I was fortunate, again."

Spain's Francisco "Paquito" Fernandez and Tunisia's Halem Ghoula were on the other side of the track as Perez finished. Each was credited with a 1:22:40 performance, but Fernandez took the silver--after a late disqualification call was reversed on appeal--and Ghoula the bronze. Ghoula thus earned the first racewalking medal by the representative of an African nation at a global meet since Cecil McMaster of South Africa took the bronze over 10 kilometers at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm.

Originally named the bronze medal winner, Mexico's Eder Sanchez was pushed back to fourth in 1:23:36 after Fernandez's reinstatement.

However, for some other celebrities of the racewalking game, three--as in the number of red cards they received for technique violations, meaning the sight of the dreaded red paddle and disqualification--spelled disaster.

Seven of the 42 starters Sunday were disqualified. On this list were such notables as Ivano Brugnetti of Italy, the 2004 Olympic champion, who had led through the midway point in 42:14; Daniel Garcia of Mexico, the 1997 world champion, and Jared Tallent of Australia. Three strikes and they were out.

Initially, it seemed Fernandez was in violation of the basic contact rule in the process of edging past Ghoula in the final meters, as detected by chief judge Ron Daniel of the United States.

He had a clean slate on the DQ board until then, but revised rules--instituted after a series of acrimonious situations at the 2000 Sydney Olympics--decree that a single call for a violation down the stretch are enough to merit a DQ.

So that put Fernandez out until he was put back in.

Robert Korzeniowski of Poland, the only man ever to win the world 50-km three times, now coaches Fernandez.

"Paquito is a fine, technical walker and this [the near-DQ] should never happen to him," said Korzeniowski.

"Then again, if I was him, maybe I would have slowed down a bit and settled for the bronze medal."

Japan's Koichi Morioka, cheered on along the course, turned in an impressive performance by finishing 11th in 1:24:46. Akihiro Sugimoto placed 19th in 1:26:45 and Takayuki Tanii 21st in 1:26:53.

The two Americans trailed home the leaders. U.S. Air Force captain Kevin Eastler was 28th in 1:28:29 and Tim Seaman 31st in 1:33:58.

"Jefferson's my hero," said Eastler. "He's everything a champion athlete should be, a real modest guy who's done so many good things for his country.

"I'm happy, very happy for Jefferson," said Seaman. "When he passed me [being lapped], I told him 'win this one for the Americas.' Well, he smiled and did exactly that.

"Now Jefferson goes after another Olympic gold medal [at Beijing in 2008]. And he's going to get it, too."

(Aug. 27, 2007)