50K World Championships

Got this article from the racewalking Yahoo group. It was pretty interesting. In case you didn't know, the 50K racewalk is the longest footrace in the Olympic games, 8K (5 miles) farther than the marathon! The world championships were in Osaka this week, and here's an article about the results.

FIFTY K WALK FOR DAILY YOMIURI.

By Elliott Denman
Special to the Daily Yomiuri

OSAKA – Fifty-kilometer racewalkers consider themselves the toughest of the tough.

Marathoners? They stop nearly eight kilometers early.

Ten thousand-meter runners? Relative sprinters.

To outsiders, fifty-kilometer men are the grizzled devotees of an event that seems to go on forever, an event that’s been the longest event in major championships since its debut at the 1932 Olympic Games, yet far too many people (a) understand, and (b) appreciate.

To do what they do and for as long as they do it, fifty-kilometer men can’t be softies. But guess what? Deep down, they really are.

Nathan Deakes proved that yesterday morning.

With some 100 meters left to walk, as the finish line neared, the last of his 24 Nagai Park two-kilometer road loops behind him, and morning-long chasers Yohan Diniz and Alex Schwazer no longer a threat to catch him, the 30-year-old Aussie had himself a very good and public cry.

By the time he crossed that line, three hours, 43 minutes and 53 seconds after he heard the starting gun at 7 a.m., those tears had turned to a gusher.

Said Deakes, after he’d dried his eyes:

“A lot of athletes make a lot of sacrifices along the way, and I’m one of them. I was thinking about everybody that ever helped me, my family and my wife, the support team that I’ve had around me..

“If I had to split up my medal in pieces for everybody who’d ever helped me, I wouldn’t have much left for myself. This is something I’ve dreamed about forever, and now to have it actually come true…

“ I tried to concentrate (on the final meters), but it was something I couldn’t help. It just started coming out.

“To actually come to the finish line (first), I couldn’t believe it, and I still can’t. World champion? It’s amazing.”

Amazing is the right word. Deakes, who set the world 50-kilometer record of 3:35:47 on home turf in Geelong last Dec. 2, then fought through a series of injuries on the road to Osaka, showed ultimate strategic sense.

Others handled the early pace-setting: Spain’s Santiago Perez, China’s Yu Chaochong, Russia’s Vladimir Kanaykin.

By the midway point, though, Deakes held a share of the lead, with Kanaykin and Japan’s own Yuki Kamazaki – to the utter delight of the many uniformed, fan-waving supporters in Nagai Park.

Then Diniz of France crashed the party, only to see Deakes surge right back. And that’s the way it stayed, with Alex Schwazer of Italy’s late bid sufficing only for the bronze medal back of Deakes and Diniz.

There were cheers for the special achievers – Russia’s Denis Nizhegorodov, finishing fourth when his heralded teammates were succumbing to heat-induced wobbles and heading to the sidelines; Canada’s Tim Berrett, the 19th placer, as the first man to compete in nine World Championships; Portugal’s Jorge Costa, the 27th-placer, age 46, as the oldest athlete in the whole meet.

But there were only commiserations and the deep regrets of the organizing committee, for Japan’s Kamazaki, who held sixth place after 35 kilometers, only to be mistakenly waved into the stadium one two-kilometer loop early, then being relegated to the DNF (did not finish) list.

It would have-should have-would have equaled the highest placing by a Japanese race walker in World Championships history, but it won’t.

Fifty-four men started the race, just 31 finished it. Nine were disqualified, 14 were DNFs, several stretchered-

off.

And, one more thing. The fifty-kilometer racewalk is the championships’ only event that doesn’t have a women’s equivalent. And the ladies, seeing what this event does to men, seem in no rush to demand equality of opportunithy.