Feeling a little guilty about sighseeing during the Olympics, I was eager to help with the aid station for the 50k walk competition this morning. It ended up being a long day, frying on the sun from 6:00am till noon, but it was very exciting at the same time. We had three guys in the race. One (Peter Korcok) got top 16 in the World Championships and was hoping to get top 12 here... He ended up pulling out with a strained a muscle at mile 10. I felt so bad for him-his whole family was here to support him-his parents and two siblings. They were all so sad, it was heartbreaking. Another guy (Milos Batovsky) walked well, I thought, only finishing over ten minutes behind his personal best, which, given the conditions, is at least at the level of his best performance. The third guy (Kazo Verkin) got last, also struggling with some health issues.
I certainly gained a lot of respect for this event. They may not get the impact that marathon runners do, but clearly they struggle with overcoming plenty other limitations.
Here is a few pictures and some brief commentary.
Early in the race, it wasn't clear if the sky would clear completely, but unfortunatelly it did... It got VERY blue and very hot. The temperature climbed to 110 degrees Farenheit (about 43 Celsius) and these strong tough men struggled.... Some pulled out, others DQed, many went down with injuries. Yet, the Italian was able to walk the Olympic Record. AMAZING.
I like the story of this guy. He is called Roman and is from the Czech Republic. His dad represented Czechoslovakia in the Olympics in 1968 in 50k walk. At the age of 40, Roman got a chance to walk his own Olympics for the first time. He only had one person behind him and though he looked awfully uncomfortable at times, he was smiling big on his last lap.
Kazo Verkin walking into the stadium... He had his moment and enjoyed every second of it, blowing kisses into the camera.
"The small world" saying came true again as the guy at the station next to ours knew my father-in-law (he was there helping/coaching a Serbian guy).
3 comments:
your picture bellow are so disrepect to Chinese culture. I guess that is why Americans are the wrost visitors in the world.
Thank you for your posting! I don’t think I have ever been “accused of” being demeaning toward other cultures (nor of being an American J). Afterall, my mission as a teacher of English as a Second Language and as a teacher educator in training has been to promote appreciation of all languages and cultures. I want to thank you for your posting because it was a good reminder how humor does not often translate across cultures and how one linguist’s fascination with translations may have led me to an act that could be viewed as inappropriate. What was meant as a joke was, clearly, taken very seriously by you and perhaps by many other people from your culture. It was also a realization that this blog has reached an audience that it had never meant to reach and as such I need to be more careful about not insulting people from other cultures. I have decided to take the pictures off in order to show my respect for the Chinese culture. My experience here has been very positive and the last thing I wanted to do is to insult a Chinese person.
PS: I would disagree with your evaluation of Americans as being bad tourists. Cultural generalizations can be perceived as similarly disrespectful.
Wow, I am so jealous that you got to watch the 50k racewalk! I did get to see it live on streaming video, though.
Thank you for helping these great athletes, and thank you also for the respectful blog entry on racewalking. Our sport gets little respect these days, and the way you talked about these courageous athletes was marvelous. To walk farther than a marathon in those conditions is remarkable.
Thanks again for your blog, and maybe one day I'll "run" (walk!) into you in Salt Lake City.
Tammy, a racewalker :)
P.S. if anyone wants to see some great photos of the men's 50k, go to www.racewalk.com and click on the Olympic coverage under "Headline News".
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