FRONT COVER: Johanna Jackson becomes the first British woman to win Gold at a major international championship. 1) Crossing the line to take the title, 2) With her medal, 3) At the presentation ceremony in the stadium. Editorial The optimism that British race walkers have had for the past year has finally been justified. The medal winning performance by Johanna at the Commonwealth Games has brought widespread attention and public respect back to our great sport. It is eight years since we last won a major medal, with Lisa Kehler gaining CG Silver back in 2002 - but Steven Barry from Wales last won CG Gold for the home countries back in 1982, making this a long wait. We now have the momentum to keep developing our top athletes and continue performing well internationally, with the dedication of people who refused to write off our sport, and a successful development structure in place that is quickly growing to be the envy of other countries. It is easy to be pessimistic as we still have a long way to go, but our team of young talented individuals is growing, and each one has made major personal leaps this year. We look forward to seeing what they can achieve next! - - - - - - - - - - Thank you to all RWR readers, you have been very patient with me and this magazine. I had to take a major break to sort out personal issues but am now back and ready to progress this magazine further forwards. Publication has been out of synch with actual dates for over a year and I have been wondering how to fix the problem that the cover month doesn’t relate to the contents. One option is to simply change to the current date, which would take the pressure off trying to catch up all the time. Another option which could never be considered is to produce the magazine every two months - but RWR will never be anything less than a monthly magazine. After asking around for opinions, I will be attempting to bring out two magazines each month for a few months until the dates finally catch up. Your opinions on this are welcome. The magazines printing contract has also overrun by 21,000 pages in the past few months - a problem caused by success and increasing popularity! Magazine info Race Walking Record (founded 1941) is the international magazine for the sport of walking and walking events, published each and every month. Issue: 806 - ‘July’ 2010. Subscriptions: UK £30, International £40, PDF by email £20. Advertisements: Full page £40, Half page £20. Club advertisements: Full page £20, Half page £10. Editor: John Constandinou, 60 Claverdon Drive, Birmingham B43 5HP. Website: www.racewalkingrecord.net Contributors: John Constandinou, Andi Drake, Pat Reeves, Phil Howell, Dave Ainsworth, Rob Elliot, Peter Hannell. Please post all news, results, announcements, letters, photos and articles to me or email them to [email protected] 8 - Announcements 8 - Results and Reports Contents 29 - Letters 2 - Editorial/Magazine info 31 - Fixtures 3 - News 3 - Commonwealth Games Special Becky Collins, Medway and Maidstone News A.C. (Starting Leeds University) 2012 Olympic Tickets Race Walker to Star in Music Video Ticket prices have recently been Ex-international Peter Hodkinson announced for all events at the London (Cambridge Harriers) was recruited to Olympics. In a surprise move, the race feature in a new music video. The video walk events will be ticketed at £20 and is for a song called “Brow Beaten” by the £30, with special pricing available for group “Silver Columns”. under 16’s and over 60’s. The video story is of a young mans quest As walk events normally take place on to become a great race walker, training public streets they are usually free and down country lanes to the beat of the unticketed, and one of the few events music. Peter performed the action and that connect the general public at large distance shots for the young actor, to with the exclusivity of the Olympics. give a realistic impression of racewalking. An enquiry has been submitted asking the organisers to clarify whether the Indian Walker Fails Drug Test public will be totally excluded from the walks, or whether tickets are just for Indian female race walker Rani Yadav, official seating stands. who finished sixth in the Commonwealth Games women's 20km walk tested The 20k Olympic racewalks will take positive in a drugs test after the event. place on Saturday 4th August 2012, with Both A and B samples proved positive. the 50k being held on Saturday 11th. The announcement was made during the World Athletics Championships 2011 Games to audible gasps from the large contingent of Indian media. A CGF The IAAF World Championships 2011 statement read: "The CGF can now (see back page) to be held in Daegu, confirm that the A sample of Ms Rani Korea from 27th August to 4th Yadav, a competitor in the women's September 2011, has announced its 20km road race on Oct 9th 2010, was entry standards: found to contain 19-Norandrosterone, a 20km Race Walk prohibited anabolic agent under category A: 1:22:30 B: 1:24:00 (Men) S1 of the WADA list of prohibited A: 1:33:30 B: 1:38:00 (Women) substances and methods.” 50km Race Walk A: 3:58:00 B: 4:09:00 (Men) India fielded as many athletes as possible for every event, and finished UKA National Race Walking Centre second overall in the medals table. Yadav was the only Indian to fail a drugs The UKA National Race Walking Centre test, in what was a clean Games. of Excellence in Leeds is continuing to increase in numbers. New intakes for the 2010 academic year are as follows: Commonwealth Ben Casey, Yeovil Olympiads Games Report (Starting Leeds Met Carnegie University) 9th October 2010 New Delhi, INDIA XIX Commonwealth Games next lap after drinking to go on and finish Walks medals went to four continents: strongly. She picked up an England flag Europe, Australia, Asia and Africa - before crossing the finish line finally making this a very diverse event triumphantly, finally beating the which is normally seen as being Australians dominance, and becoming dominated by certain countries. the first British woman to win a Gold medal for walking at major Games. India entered a full compliment of six walkers (three men, three women) for Claire Tallent won Silver for Australia. the walks, along with many other events. She is the wife of the men’s winner, and They should be congratulated for they exchanged words and smiles as he supporting events in this way, and other passed her on the lap in the later stages. host nations should follow suit. Grace Wanjiru Njue won Bronze. After The men’s and women’s race walks exchanging positions with Claire were held together on a closed loop, with throughout the race she was left trailing separate starting times. The men set off in the final two laps, unable and could first, with the women setting off fifteen not make up the distance. minutes later. It was dark until 20 minutes before the race as a 6:30am Lisa Kehler was the surprise of the day. start was to keep the temperature and After trailing the entire field and seeming humidity as low as possible. Although to fall further behind each lap, she truly humidity was high, temperatures never showed her experience over the younger rose as much as had been expected by athletes by pacing herself to move up the athletes. from last position to an amazing fourth, also setting a Seasons Best. Finishing Many metro stations as well as key just outside the medals she could not roads were blocked from usage creating add to her three previous CG medals trouble for New Delhi people in from four previous Commonwealth commuting. The roads were shut from Games in 1990, 1994, 1998 and 2002. the midnight hours on the 8th of October till 10:30 am. 1 JACKSON Jo ENG 1:34:22 2 TALLENT Claire AUS 1:36:55 England athletes were stationed in 3 NJUE Grace Wanjiru KEN 1:37:49 Doha, Qatar until shortly before their 4 KEHLER Lisa ENG 1:40:33 events, due to widely publicised 5 WEBB Cheryl AUS 1:42:03 concerns about the athletes’ village. 6 NGII Emily Wamusyi KEN 1:49:01 7 KAKKUZIYIL Sandhya IND 1:51:44 Women's 20km DQ YADAV Rani IND 1:42:54 DNF LEIMAPOKPAM Devi IND In the women’s race Johanna Jackson led from start to finish. Her race plan had Men's 20km been to stay with the pack for half the race and then make a break, aiming to In the men’s race, the fight was on win. Within a few km the pace was too between four men. Tallent and Adams of slow for her (5:00/km) and so she broke Australia (the favourites), Rotich of away. She maintained a comfortable Kenya (the oldest competitor), and Singh pace for the rest of the race, only of India. The local athlete went off with struggling and slowing down when she the pack as many Indian athletes did at missed getting a drink on one of her final the Games, with observers wondering at laps. Other athletes had also slowed what point he would burn himself out in down by this point, and Jo recovered this endurance event. through to finish ahead of the For half the race all four were battling, Malaysians in 13th place, nearly nine then Adams and Tallent broke away, minutes behind his PB set just a few splitting the front of the race into two months before.