Originally Posted by cyclone3483
Okay, time to get educated, people.
First, it is race walking, not "speed walking".
Second, there is no limit on your speed, provided what you do classifies as a walk (one foot on the ground at all times, straight leg while in contact with the ground).
Third, the sport may be nothing in the Americas, but it is HUGE in Europe and Asia and has more following world wide than many other Olympic sports.
Fourth, race walking is judged to make sure people don't break the rules (like football, hockey, basketball, etc.), not judged for quality of performance (like gymnastics, synchro swimming, diving, etc.).
Fifth, rules for judging state that the person must look legal to the naked eye, so they may look like they are cheating if you look at slow-mo, but they aren't breaking the rules if it still looks (to the naked eye) like they are not lifting or bending the knee.
Finally, race walkers go further (20k and 50k) than most of you have ever gone in your life and probably faster too.
My wife is a race walker, provincial champ, and she enters running races to beat the runners. She just did 27k training today and can get speeds around 5 mins/k. The 50k gold medallist did it in something like 3:45. Any of you run a marathon in that time? Well he went 7.8k further...
You don't have to like the sport, switch the channel, you have choice. It may look funny, but it is more of a sport than at least 50% of the Olympic events (archery, shooting, equestrian, synchro anything, badminton) and has a higher world wide audience than many other sports (see previous list).
There...feel educated?
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