Road Walking! What can one say about this ridiculous sport? It is the one sport that could easily be removed from the Olympic Games events and other than the competitors themselves I don't think anyone would miss it.
It looks stupid and it is stupid! The athletes are supposed to use a toe heel, straight leg technique to prevent running but none of the athletes seems to bother about this rule. At every Games athletes are disqualified for running and this year was no exception. I can see the athletes are running , the TV cameras can see the athletes are running, the crowd can see the athletes are running and yet the judges can't.
This year we had TV slow motion close ups of their feet and on one occasion virtually all the runners were in the air! Were they disqualified? Not on your nellie to coin a useful English phrase.
If we are to continue with this farce why not employ modern technology that is available. Why not have a small censor in the athletes shoes that would record every illegal step. Lets be generous and say twenty illegal steps and you are out. That should stop the blatant cheating and blind judges and restore a semblance of fair play to the whole sorry sport. Something similar is utilized in fencing to score the hits which are too fast to be seen.
If one sport has to be dropped drop Race Walking would get my vote, leave rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming alone and bring back baseball which was dumped.
PS 7 August 2012 - Since I wrote this the Italian winner of this event has disqualified himself for taking drugs. Road walkers seem prone to cheat it appears. I rest my case.
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