On Saturday, August 9th it is confirmed that the Goodwin Cup 10 kilometres will take place from the St Peter’s Church Hall in Chorley. Eric Crompton will open up by noon. As usual the race will start at 1.00 am and you are encouraged to let Dave Evans know if you are attending and in what capacity.

Contact Dave at dave.evans08@hotmail.co.uk

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With grateful thanks to the Essex Walker and Dave Ainsworth, taken from edition 454, August-September 2025

MORE FROM A TALENTED FILM MAKER

This is almost as good as being there. Another film from Len Ruddock:

The 2025 European Athletics Race Walking Team Championship at Podebrady.

“Good viewing and all comments welcomed.

Putting it together was a useful aide memoire to
my observation report, as previously published in Essex Walker, so thanks for that.

I hope it can be used, in certain areas, by coaches to help interpret today’s view of the rules governing
our sport of Race Walking.

And as an aside, it begs the question, is it time to revise the laws?”

Len Ruddock

Below is Len’s written report, which appeared in Essex Walker 453.

FROM OUR MAN AT THE BIG PODEBRADY MEET

These are my personal impressions of the event. This was the first major RW event that I had been to since the 50km at the London Olympics. It was a good opportunity to view closely the current state of play, healthy or otherwise, of our sport of Race Walking. The venue was the beautifully laid out Collonade city park of this long-established Bohemian spa town. The 1km circuit had all the modern gizmos of current major set-ups: big screen, start/finish gantry, Czech and English commentary, good marshalling with barriers plus lots of sponsors. I learnt that the venue was used for a number of events the previous day (Saturday 17th) for running and a masters walk. A good bit of integration and PR there.

Two years ago, Chris Maddocks with Paul Warburton (World Athletics Commentator) and three American RW notables were on a panel discussing the subject heading, ‘How Race Walking Has Changed Through the Decades’ (available on YouTube). Chris made an observation that the perception of ‘Joe Public’ was that they could not detect if a walker was lifting at speeds of 4mins/km as the movement was too fast. However, Chris maintained that the well-trained eye, particularly judges (whom he generally praised), would be able to detect poor walking, even at that pace. With Chris’s quote rattling in my brain, I was genuinely pleasantly surprised of the overall standard of RW and the intervention of the judges where necessary. The only exception, I felt, was the Snr Men’s 20km and especially over the latter stages of the race. I obtained the official printed results of all the races, bar the men’s 20km (I had to dash for my train) and included are all the red cards given out per competitor. It makes interesting reading, as it shows that the judges didn’t hold back issuing cards even for the big names. I also noticed that the soles of the predominantly worn footwear, were a lot thicker than I can remember and some brands appeared ‘spongy’, not providing a solid rigid base to execute the next stride properly. For what it’s worth, I thought as a group, the women in the 35km gave the best demonstration of solid race walking.

To wrap up, my own conclusion, is that RW is thriving outside of these shores. For example, Ireland had 4 men and 2 women starting across the events. Italy, Spain and France dominated results-wise but even Ukraine had the winner in the women’s 20km, Lyudmila Olyanovskaya in 1:27:56, 9 seconds ahead of Clémence Beretta of France. It was an enjoyable, engaging race day, an event for everyone to enjoy and I hope to get along to some of these World Athletics’ organised events in future and my message to those who sit on the fence or have written off RW is, why not get along to one of these and see for yourself?

Len Ruddock

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The Essex Walker under the watchful and knowledgeable eye of Dave Ainsworth goes from strength to strength, full of absorbing contemporary and historical material. Subscribe by contacting Dave at dave_ainsworth@yahoo.co.uk