At the weekend I was sorting out belatedly Steve Uttley’s measured thoughts on the proposed distance changes in our sport at an international and national level. Then, out of the blue, courtesy of Stu Cooper, the indefatigable editor of the Australian race walking newsletter, I heard the news that the timetable for the Los Angeles Olympics includes just the half-marathon distance for both the men and women’s walks

Firstly Steve’s contribution.

My thoughts on the change to half marathon and marathon are that it may on balance be positive. I know people are attached to the old events and 50kms has been around since 1932 but the event is dead at grassroots level. Its replacement the 35kms is a meaningless distance even to race walkers. The 20kms is in a better place but not by much. We can’t sustain a national championship at 35 or 50kms most years and most other European countries are in the same boat. In recent years several European countries have had to combine to hold one championship because they basically have no 50km walkers.

I know that some take the view that walking is thriving at international level, perhaps more than ever and therefore doesn’t need fixing. I don’t take that view. Aside from moral objections to a sport for elite athletes that has no grassroots, a bit like Formula 1 motor racing, there are practical issues. The event is entirely dependent on the largesse of the IAAF (World Athletics) and IOC. The reason that there are so many internationals is because walking is in the Olympics and to a lesser extent the World Championships. It is part of the support network for Olympic sports because medals and therefore national prestige is at stake. As a standalone sport with no support from athletics and government’s walking would very quickly wither away. The fact that World Athletics is taking an interest is positive. If they truly wanted to destroy the event as some allege then they would simply drop it overnight. There would be very little pushback. A bit of grumbling maybe but no one would take to the streets to save race walking.

Changing distances alone will probably not save walking but it could help. It will make achievements more apparent because most people have no idea how far 50kms is, or 35 or 20kms. Given numeracy levels many probably think a 3.40 50kms is inferior to a marathon run in the same time. 20kms is similar to a half marathon but I’ve never personally met a non walker who made the connection. Secondly it will enable more tie ins with established marathons and half marathons. Many people walk marathons and half marathons but there are no longer established walk sections in these events. If these events could be resurrected over what would be for the first time meaningful international (and maybe Olympic) distances it could give walking a shot in the arm. It will make us visible and hopefully encourage existing participants in those events to give walking a try. This is worth a try because without changes walking is under existential threat. A castle built on sand.

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Secondly, Stu Cooper’s analysis from the VRWC newsletter, ‘Heel and Toe’. Thanks to Stu for the permission to reproduce.

Nobody will be totally surprised, though the anger and disappointment will be bitter. Since the decision by World Athletics and the IOC to do away with the historic 50km walk, the feeling was that any replacement for it – 35km, mixed relay, full marathon or anything else – would be short-lived in a ‘20s environment that, as Spain’s Paul McGrath put it, values “only Olympic events that last 60 minutes and can be watched in their entirety on TikTok.”1

Last week, the IOC released the events schedule for all athletics events at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

There is only one distance for both men and women in the walks, the half marathon. The other options mooted are nowhere to be seen. 

To walking fans scanning the athletics program, hoping for good news, what they found would have aroused a range of emotions, from outright fury, through sadness and despair, to resignation. (“What else did we expect?”) There might even have been some desperate expression of hope; after all, they changed the 35km to a mixed relay eighteen months out from Paris, didn’t they? They can do it again.

I wish I shared that optimism. That was Paris – the city of romance – and perhaps someone in the IOC Competitions Committee saw a way of capitalising on that. If the experiment of mixed male/female relays (walks, triathlon) had a chance of succeeding anywhere, surely it was there beneath the Eiffel Tower. While the idea of a mixed marathon walk relay was roundly disparaged when announced, in the end it was well received by some for its entertainment value, although the opinions of the competitors were mixed. Had the walking community been unanimously in favour of it and prepared to fight for it, had all pairings been of equal standard, had the race been no longer than TikTok audiences’ attention spans … I don’t believe any amount of ‘hads’ would have made a difference to the IOC. The decision to provide one walk and one only at LA28 was very likely made before the Paris games ended. Maybe even before that.

The death of the 50km and stillbirth of the 35km confirms that Olympic endurance race walking (and the time allotment it requires) is a thing of the past. Thus close the scissors upon a thread of heroes beginning with Tommy Greene in 1932 and ending with Dawid Tomala in 2021, bracketing a passing parade of victors over tortured bodies and minds. The fact that the Marathon mixed walk relay was axed after only one showing lends credence to the view that it was only ever intended as a sop to the walking community for one Games – a one-off stopgap between the 50km and nothing at all – and that it was set up to fail. That it didn’t do so entirely is a credit to the athletes, the organisers on the ground – and, yes, the TV coverage. All of them pulled out the stops to make it work. It’s hard not to conclude that its success or failure was, in the end, irrelevant. The die was cast.

The question now is whether World Athletics will follow suit and pare back the world championship walks to one event. Last December, when announcing the changes of the 20 and 35km walks to Half-marathon and full Marathon walks, WA president Sebastian Coe declared: “What we’ve said is race walk is secure in our World Championships.” He didn’t say how many walks. I’d like to think Lord Coe would use his status and clout to advocate for the finest endurance walkers and keep the long one (35km, 50km or Marathon) on the ticket. Without WA’s backing, the return of a second walk event of any kind to the Olympics has no chance.

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Before hearing this latest insult to the history and tradition of our sport I was being swayed by Steve’s eloquent argument. This said, my own anecdotal experience is that runners of all abilities here on Crete, where most road and country races are 10.000 metres in distance, do appreciate the speeds over 20,00 metres achieved by race walkers of differing abilities. The arithmetic is straightforward. As with the 50 kilometres I find myself wanting to defend the history of and the performances achieved at 20 kilometres. Is it not ironic that we are shoehorned into a distance that is itself somewhat quaint. A half marathon is 13 miles 192.5 yards. Comparative times at other distances apart from the marathon itself are not so easily calculated. Of course the history of the marathon distance is to be deeply respected but so does the history of the 20 and 50 kilometre walks. Perhaps I protest too much. I’m sure I will be told I’m not keeping up with the times. Why would I want to do so when these times are about athletics as a commodity to be marketed and sold? Sod history and tradition!