PARIS OLYMPIC RACEWALKERS DRAW BIG CROWDS TO THE TROCADERO AREA; THEIR SENIORITY DESERVES MORE RESPECT.

This is Elliott Denman, our most senior writer, who has written for us since 1990, and at the age of 91, the 1956 Olympic race walker knows his stuff.

PARIS OLYMPIC RACEWALKERS

DRAW BIG CROWDS TO THE TROCADERO AREA;

THEIR SENIORITY DESERVES MORE RESPECT.

By ELLIOTT DENMAN

Fact: Men’s racewalking has been in the Olympic Games since 1904.

That means it’s been on the Games track and field program, in one form or another, longer than the javelin throw (which joined the card in 1906), and the 5,000 and 10,000 meters, decathlon and both 4×100 and 4×400 relays (which all commenced in 1912).

And, of course/of course, long before every women’s event.

You’d think that form of seniority would have accumulated.

Heaps of respect all these years, wouldn’t you?

You’d think the rest of the Olympic sport would have learned to appreciate its elders.

You’d think that the great champions of racewalking all those years would occupy pedestals as high as their immortal running-jumping-throwing colleagues.

You’d think that, in this day and age of Olympic “urban” inclusion, walking would be embraced as the most “urban” activity of them all. Heck, there are ‘interval training devices’ in every big city’s downtown—you know, those signs that say “walk now” and “don’t walk.”
Well, keep on pondering.

The first two racewalking events of the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad are already in the books. The men’s 20K and the women’s 20K was staged on the first day of August over an L-shaped one-kilometer loop course in the Trocadero area of Paris, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

They were huge successes, great shows, attracting thickly-packed crowds, on the sidelines, generating excellent TV coverage and good racing news

That was quickly dispatched to some of the far corners of the planet.

But too many allegedly close followers of this sport—the one called athletics in virtually every nation but ours—chose to ignore it.

The first of August? That’s a great day for them to do sightseeing in another arrondissement. Paris has so many sights to see or catch up on their laundry.

To these folks, the Olympic track and field slate began on the second of August.

What a show they skipped.

Listen to two-time (1992-96) USA Olympic racewalker Allen James:

“Day one represented the most globally competitive event in the Olympic program….and that’s not just track and field.

“Look at the men’s 20 km. Walk.

“All six areas (of World Athletics’ geo-categories)…