ATHLETICS: Julian Drew
ON Sunday morning the Johannesburg Zoo will play host to a rather different crowd to the normal weekend animal lovers. The only marathon race walking event in Africa in the form of the Johannesburg Big Walk will start and finish at the zoo and there are high hopes of a bumper field of around 4 000 competitors.
It is the second staging of the race following a successful debut last year and Athletics South Africa’s (ASA) Race Walking Committee see it as an important event in popularising race walking as an athletics discipline. There will be a 42.2km race starting at 6:30 followed by a 21.1km race at 8:30 and an 8km fun run for beginners once all the more serious atheltes are on their way.
Race walking in this country has started to show an improvement in the last few years since the return to international competition with the national record having been broken in all three standard Olympic events.
Last month South Africa competed for the second time in the World Race Walking Cup held in Beijing and there were some good individual performances despite the men’s teams not having the required number of finishers in both their races to make an impact in the team events.
Chris Britz broke the South African record of his fellow team mate, Stanley Valentine, when he clocked one hour 25 minutes 24 seconds for 37th position in the men’s 20km race.
Debbie Beckley missed her national record in the women’s 10km race by three seconds with a time of 51 minutes 50 seconds.
Had Riecus Blignaut not been disqualified in the 20km walk and performed within his capabilities then South Africa would have finished in the top 15 out of the 33 competing countries.
On Sunday all but two of South Africa’s 10 competitors in Beijing will be competing in the Big Walk. Defending champions in the half marathon race, Chris Britz and Debbie Beckley, will again contest the same distance while the men’s marathon distance winner from last year, Johan Moerdyk, will also be back to defend his crown.
The elite walkers are now getting more competitions because the ASA and provincial race walking committees are getting more actively involved in promoting the sport. The Big Walk also provides an opportunity for the less competitive walkers from keep fit programmes like Walk for Life to test themselves and race against the big names. It shouldn’t be forgotten that top walkers can sometimes come out of these ranks, however, for two of South Africa’s representatives in Beijing, Felicity Falconer and Barbara Nel, both started out on the Walk for Life programme about five years ago. “Our biggest problem is that we do not have race walking at school level anymore and that is a big concern because we don’t have any new blood coming through,” says Stanley Valentine who sits on ASA’s Race Walking Committee. “We must get involved and draw up a proper development plan for the schools so that we can offer suggestions to ASA and the United Schools Sports Association of South Africa (Ussasa),” he says. Until then the race walking talent scouts should take a close look at the youngsters going through their paces on Sunday.