Race walking
Race walking is a sport in which some part of the foot must always be in contact with the ground.An Olympic sport since 1906, it is now practiced for fitness and recreation as well.
Race walking began in London in 1897. Since 1906, walking races have been a part of the Olympic trackand- field program and in 1919 the London-to-Brighton walking race (about 86.1 kilometers or 53.5
miles) had become an annual event, with women first participating in 1932. In the 1950s and 1960s a walking craze swept Great Britain, and hundreds of people, sometimes individually or in sponsored competitions, raced the length of the country.
The race walking world championship, the Lugano Trophy, was instituted in 1961. This biennial contest awards points to the first three walkers (from teams of four) in both the 20-kilometer (12.5-mile) and 50- kilometer (31-mile) races, and the point total determines team position. Race walking has long been plagued by the problem of “lifting,” that is, the competitor’s failure to keep at least one foot in contact
with the ground throughout a race. Between 1956 and 1984, a series of controversies and disqualifications resulted.
Recently, race walkers have taken to ultramarathon distances. Malcolm Barnish’s 1985 feat of walking 663.17 kilometers (412.08 miles) nonstop set a world record. It took him 6 days, 10 hours, and 32 minutes. From 10 June 1970 to 5 October 1974, American David Kunst walked and walked and walked. He became the first person to circumambulate the globe.
In the 1990s, the old-fashioned sport of race walking became part of the fitness fad because of its use in cardiorespiratory conditioning.
