What I Now Know About Race Walking


Olga Kaniskina won a gold medal but I'm not sure why.

I'm not saying she didn't deserve it for her performance in the 20-km race walk at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I'm just saying I don't understand what she was doing. What is race walking? This is what I have learned so far from watching it last night.

Good form is when your legs look like noodles collapsing inwards as they are twirled around in a blender. Your feet look like they are desperately trying to avoid hot coals. And if the gold medalist and record setter was any indication, your face must contort into an artistically pained expression of melancholy beauty.

Winning is about resisting the urge to run. I know I would have broken. While the racepack, resembling a bunch of senior citizen penguins jazzercising, trailing Kaniskina by merely feet (or meters, if you prefer), I was waiting for one of the other runners to lose it and just take off. Then all of them would follow suit. It's like when I was a kid in a Catholic school walking from building to building in a straight line. If one of us broke ranks for whatever reason (usually no reason) and took off at full speed, everyone would follow. And we'd all get in trouble (accept for the little butt kissers. You know the ones that respect their elders and go to heaven)

Judges are involved and they hold up little paddles like they were at an auction to warn of rule violations. I question any sport that has judges. Maybe there is Simon Cowell in there being brutally honest, but you might have you share of Paula Abduls watching a whole other ballgame (to mix sports metaphors).

Though not the normal track, the Beijing Olympics race walk track, lined with potted plants, looked like one of those entrances into an Atlantic City Casino.

It took an hour and a half to declare a winner. Shorter than a baseball game, but really had they just run ... (I know, I know it's not allowed).