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-toBrighton 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.
—SCOTT A. G. M. CRAWFORD
Bibliography: Race Walking Association. (1962). The Sport
of Race Walking. Ruislip, UK: Race Walking Association.