News from the USATF Convention
The USATF Convention was held last week at the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas. Justin Kuo kept the Racewalk mailgroup updated with the results and has granted permission to reprint items here.
Awards
Curt Clausen and Andew Herman presented the "Athlete's Award" to Elaine Ward (who was not present) for her contributions to racewalking.
In Men's and Women's race walking, Rich Torrellas presented the five Captain Ron Zinn
awards:
for outstanding athlete at 10 kilometers, Debbi Lawrence.
for outstanding athlete at 20 kilometers, Curt Clausen.
for outstanding athlete at 50 kilometers, Andrew Herman.
for outstanding contributor to the sport, Bev La Veck.
for outstanding association, New England Association.
Judging
Lawrie Robertson spoke on RW officiating. He has established a database of judges calls
for a small number of events. Although there is just one one year of data, that data
compares with IAAF and european judging. Here are some facts:
67% of cautions are bent knee
33% are for lifting
75% of warnings are for bent knee
25% are for lifting
63% of women are warned for bent knee, vs. 75% for men
37% of women are warned for lifting, vs 25% for men
Lawrie sent surveys to the National team members regarding judging. Athletes want to see judges stick to the two rules; respect style diversity; treat each event as though it was the athletes first; avoid coaching conflicts; impartiality; see the caution paddle before warnings are given; be objective and have courage to make the calls; add umpires to road walks; etc. Lawrie's database may extend to include the indoor and outdoor natl master championships. All data collected will remain confidential and is used to develop consistancy and judging training programs.
In RW meetings, Bob Bowman described the effort by IAAF to reduce the current number of
IAAF RW officials by approximately 50%. Each federation may be limited to 3 (level 3) IAAF
RW judges that can officite at World Cups, World Championships, or Olympics. This would
allow the remaining judges more opportunities to officiate at the world levels. Some
federations have IAAF RW officials but no RW program. The US currently has 10 IAAF judges.
Bob Bowan presented a 20 minute video titled "Race walk judjing certification."
It's to be used to help train IAAF RW judges as well as race directors and coaches. The
video is one of the best Justin has seen, showing all styles of RW and what to look for
during competition.
There was a lot of discussion on the proposed amendment to require all youth coaches to have a criminal background check. If passed, the national office would indentify the youth coaches, and pay for a background check. As you can imagine, there was a lot of discussion both pro and con for this item.
Dan Pierce presented the updated judgeing handbook. Proof reading should be complete by Jan 15 and copies should be available Feb 1. Profits from sale of the handbook support RW. Updates will be available on the RW web site.
Web Site
The Racewalk web site receives over 500 hits per day at this site and the site attracts both racewalkers and fitness walkers. The site include RW schedules, events, results, etc. Goals for next year include a page on each of the natl team members (including a short bio, photos, accomplishments, etc.), including the new RW handbook, update to RW contacts and clubs, updates to schedules, updates to records and adding master records.
Championship Schedule
Feb 8
US 50K Championship, Palo Alto, CA
US Trial for Pan Am RW cup
(SM 50K)
Feb 27-28
USATF Indoor T&F Championship, Atlanta, GA
(M 5K, W 3K)
Mar 27-29
US Master Indoor Championships, Boston MA
(MW, MW 3K) walks on Mar 29
May 3
US 20K/30K Championships, Albany NY
(JM, SW, MW 20K / SM, MM 30K)
May 24
US 15K Championship, Elk Grove Village, IL
(JW, SW, SM, MW, MM)
Jun 19-21
USATF Outdoor T&F Championships, New Orleans, LA
(SW 10K, SM 20K)
Jun 27-28
US Junior T & F Championships, Edwardsvill, IL
(JW 5k, JM 10K)
Jul 11
US 10K Championships, Niagara Falls NY
(SM, MM)
Jul 28-Aug 2
US Junior Olympics Championshipd, Seattle, WA
(All youth divisions - 5000m/3000m)
Jul 30-Aug 2
US Master Outdoor Championships, Orono, ME
(MW, MM 5k {tr}; MW 10K; MM 20K)
Aug 23
US 5K Championships, Wilkes-Barre PA
(SW, SM)
Sep 12
US Master 5K Road Championships, Kingsport, TN
(MW, MM)
Sep 13
US 40K Championships, Ft. Monmouth, NJ
(SM, MM, MW)
Oct 4
US One Hour/Two hour Championships, Worcester MA
(SM-2hr) (SW, JM, JW, MM, MW-1hr)
Net Link Lists of Interest
USATF
Clubs and Organizations
Racewalking
Old Walking Shorts
11/02/97
: NYC Marathon results, Track and Field Hall of Fame, Vancouver Discovery Walk IML sanctioning, walking tapes.11/10/97: USATF restructuring, Derek Mortland fund, Australian Juniors, Walking Britain, AVA Secretary's Walk Report from Portland, Oregon.
11/16/97: Great walks from readers, racewalking news, pedestrian advocacy website.
11/23/97: Racewalking book, Denmark website.
