Racewalking is still moronic

How much racewalking do you see in any local events? I see plenty of traditional walking.

I can only think of one race where i saw one. I was running pretty slow as i was out of shape early in a season and i was passed by one.

Nice try, but they aren't the same thing. Racewalking doesn't pass the most basic test: eye test. It doesn't look right or natural. Someone running in full flight and jumping is a type of natural motion. There is also a history there, where steeplechase is representative of races run throughout history in towns across the world. Go from A to B fast, over the fences and over the streams.

Racewalking isn't a natural motion, it looks goofy, all of them leave the ground and tech exists or could exist to monitor this, but they don't do it because it would be the death knell of that sport. I mean we can't get people to run in this country, I have no idea how race walking is around still, how in the hell do they attract participants?

agree!

I love Letsrun.com.As a former athlete and racewalker, it is the very best way to follow athletics. Unfortunately I continue to be very dissapointed by the horrible disrespect that race walking receives on this website. I find it very sad that there are so many athletes or posters who are such miserable and disrespectful people.They make horrible and mean posts,not only about race walking ,but about other athletes and life in general.

My father always said that people in athletics tend to be good people and I always agreed with him until now.He was a man of few words but believed that if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say it at all. People have a right to their opinions but should express themselves in a respectful manner. It is very sad to see that so many people on this website never learned to be good people.

I just think it should be renamed Bathroom Urgency Racing.

Triple jump is the one event that is as contrived as race walking, with the hop, skip and jump rules. But triple jump is so cool to watch, the athletes are amazing.

Yet you offer nothing beyond "be nice".

The problem is that it makes the struggling sport of athletics subject to ridicule. The vast majority of sports fans scoff at the sight of race walking. It should be scrapped to save embarrassment.

It's not walking. It's just something else. Looks foolish. They're usually fit though. Some of them are fast runners.

I endorse what you say fully and I support race walkers. When I lived in England back in the 1970s I used to see the top class racewalkers of Belgrave harriers training on the same routes that I trained on in Wimbledon and from then on I respected them because I knew how hard they worked and how hard they tried to walk within the rules. I marvel at the fact the top class racewalkers can race walk at a speed of around six minutes per mile for 20 km. Yes, it is sad that so many people disrespect race walkers. People do not disrespect swimmers who do the backstroke and butterfly yet they are intrinsically unnatural for most people.

Perseus Karlstrom, from Sweden, who placed third in the 20 km walk yesterday in under one hour and 20 minutes and if you follow this guy you will perhaps begin to admire racewalkers. They are absolutely marvelous athletes who display a phenomenal amount of fitness. In fact overall in terms of fitness and strength top class racewalkers surpass pure distance runners, In strength, flexibility and general athleticism.

All swimming competitions should be freestyle, as the limitations of certain strokes are as unnatural as racewalking. OP is correct.

This sums it up very well for me.

"Walking" is moving from A to B while not trying to do it as fast as possible. To keep the characteristics (contact to the ground) but with the intention to move as fast as possible. is quite curious.
It's like trying to solve a hard mathematical problem but without using all your knowledge and skills.
If you are close to your limit in race walking, you must be disqualified. If you really stick to the rule (contact) all the time, you were not close to your limit.
Another thing: 20km and 35km distances? Wtf? How many a great at 20k but not at 35 and vice versa.

If I were King of Track n Field I would eliminate race walking, the 200m, the triple jump, and replace the 1500m with the Mile.

Yes, if they insist on keeping it, they should have to eat three bowls of chili and some laxatives (mandatory white dress pants). ESPN would air it between Major League Eating and Cornhole.

Can somebody help me out with something?

When/why did RW become 20km and 35km?

(Not that I really care.)

In my Utopia, it would be 100m, 400m, 1600m, and 6400m track, and 25600m road. Separations of 4x, not 2x.

And RW would not exist.

As a former college swimmer who only really "excelled" (barely qualified for D2 Nats.) in the breaststroke I've come around to this view. Breaststroke has had numerous DQ/alleged cheating controversies over the years because almost anything you do to break the form will make you faster. That is just silly, to enforce a bunch of rules that only serve to make you bob up and down in the water 10s slower for every 100m swam.

I try to think of a justification for having at least one other stroke, (like running has hurdles and cross country skiing has skate and classic) but I can't think of a good reason why anyone would swim a different way if they were trying to get somewhere fast.

Track is not immune to this. As others have pointed out, race walking and triple jump are dumb. Also, do throwers really need to throw 4 different kinds of objects. I feel like two would do (the heavy metal ball and the spear).

I would feel embarrassed to be a race walker.

It's an event so weird they have to put the word race in the title so that you know what the hell they're doing. Might as well make softball an Olympic sport.