Walking was one of the first athletics endeavors to attract public attention and throughout the 17th to 19th centuries, many competitions were held, either from point to point or over set periods of time. But by the second half of the 19th century, walking had lost some of the appeal to the public that it had previously enjoyed. Charles Westhall, himself accounted a very fair professional walker, wrote in 1862 of the abuses that had been allowed to infiltrate into the sport, of the shuffling gaits and unfair practices that were to be seen at every sports gathering; and bitterly he complained of the
“inability or want of courage on the part of the judges and referee to stop the man, who, in his eagerness for fame or determination to gain money anyhow, may trespass upon fair walking and run.”
He is perhaps the first to define in print how walking should be judged
“To be a good and fair walker, the attitude should be upright or nearly so, with the shoulders well back, and the arms when in motion held well up in a bent position, and at every stride swinging with the movement of the legs well across the chest, which should be well thrown out. The loins should be slack to give plenty of freedom to the hips, and the leg perfectly straight, thrown out from the hip boldly and directly in front of the body, and allowed to reach the ground with the heel being decidedly the first portion of the foot to meet it. The movement of the arms will keep the balance of the body and bring the other leg from the ground.”
But this was not definitive and, in those early days, judges had only
the vague concept of ‘fair heel and toe’ to guide them in
their interpretations. When John Chambers won the first English amateur
walking championship in 1866, the event was judged under this
‘rule’.
1880 marked the formation of the Amateur Athletics Association in
England and, in its inaugural Championships Meeting in 1880, the AAA
published its first Rules for Competition. It is notable that the
essentials of the modern internationally recognized rules, including
sizes and shapes of weights and throwing areas, were here established.
The 1880 ruleset consisted of 16 rules (a century later this had grown
to 114).
Rules 14 and 15 were of particular interest to walkers:
14. In Walking Races, cautions and disqualifications to be left
to
the discretion of of the judges.
15. The decision of the Judges in each competition to be final.
Thus no effort was made to define what constituted correct walking and the judges were left to their own interpretations of what was ‘fair heel and toe’.
Fair heel and toe?
Australasia was one of the first Athletics Congresses to adopt
formal rules for the sport of walking. A. O. Barrett and R.
H. Croll submitted these propositions to the 1900
Australasian Convention of all the amateur associations in Auckland
1. That a racing walker must have contact with the ground with
one
foot during a stride, and with both feet at the end of a stride.
2. That the heel of the front foot must touch the ground before the
back foot leaves it.
3. That as the heel of the front foot touches the ground the leg must
not be bent, its knee must be locked.
4. That the body and head must be kept upright.
These rules were adopted as the formal rules governing racewalking
in
Australia and stayed in effect for many years. It took the wider
racewalking world over 50 years to reach a comparable degree of
sophistication in its own rules.
The I.A.A.F. was very slow to react to what was an obvious need. It was
only the inclusion of race walking in the London Olympics of 1908 that
brought into focus the lack of agreement as to what constituted
walking. To resolve this vexing question once and for all, the I.A.A.F.
Walking Commission was formed in 1912.
Yet it was not until 1928 that the I.A.A.F published the following
definition of race walking. This new rule was to be employed for
judging purposes in all international competitions.
Walking is progression by steps so taken that unbroken contact with the ground is maintained.
This simple rule left a lot to be desired. It did not discuss in any
manner or form the need to land on the heel or give any real guidance
to judges to help them decide what was legitimate and what was
unacceptable. Consequently, it received continuing criticism over a
long period of time, both on the grounds that it was
‘insufficient’ and that it was not clearly understood. From
time to time, proposals were put forward for new definitions or for
considerable amplification of the existing one. Many of these proposals
were concerned with walking ‘style’ rather than with the
issue of contact with the ground. Many of these proposals made it to
the agenda of I.A.A.F. Congress meetings but were either withdrawn or
referred back for further analysis.
At the 1949 I.A.A.F. Conference in Stockholm, an acceptable proposal
was finally confirmed and adopted, resulting in the 1928 definition
being amplified to read
Walking is progression by steps so taken that unbroken contact with the ground is maintained. At each step, the advancing foot of the walker must make contact with the ground before the rear foot leaves the ground.
This was obviously only an interpretation of the former definition,
but
it did serve to explain the definition in clear terms and focus
concentration on the essential element of contact with the ground. But
issues still remained and came to a head very quickly when English
walkers Allen and Hardy were disqualified when leading the 1950
European Walking Championship in Brussels. Further controversies in
the1952 Olympic 10,000m walk ensured that this version of the rule was
short lived.
By the time the Melbourne Olympics came around in 1956, the rule had
been split into two subsections and amplified to read
1. Definition. Walking is progression by steps so taken that
unbroken contact with the ground is maintained.
2. Judging. Judges of walking must be careful to observe that the
advancing foot of the walker must make contact with the ground before
the rear foot leaves the ground, and in particular, that during the
period of each step in which a foot is on the ground, the leg shall be
straightened (i.e. not bent at the knee) at least for one moment.’
This rule now ensured that only one basic style of walking was
acceptable – the original ‘heel and toe’ version.
This new rule served the walking community well and remained in force
until, in October 1972, it was amended, with the addition of a further
statement concerning when the leg must be straightened –in the
vertical upright position. This amendment was necessary because of the
ever increasing speed with which walkers raced and the increasing
difficulties in deciding whether a competitor did in fact straighten
his leg for the required instant. Now that instant was easier to judge
– it had to be at a specific point in the stride.
Walking is progression by steps so taken that unbroken contact with the ground is maintained. At each step, the advancing foot of the walker must make contact with the ground before the rear foot leaves the ground. During the period of each step when a foot is on the ground, the leg must be straightened (i.e. not bent at the knee) at least for one moment, and in particular, the supporting leg must be straight in the vertical upright position.
This rule did not stand the test of time because it was still hard
to
interpret at high speed. If a competitor did not straighten on first
contact with the ground and rolled through on an initially bent leg,
there was still too much room for subjectivity in deciding whether he
did indeed straighten for the required instant when in the vertical
position. There were also increasingly frequent photographs that showed
walkers without the necessary unbroken contact with the ground.
A new rule was now promulgated in April 1996. It contained one obvious
change – that of a continuously straight leg during the first
half of the stride) and one subtle change – that of maintaining
contact as viewed by the human eye.
Race Walking is a progression of steps so taken that the walker makes contact with the ground, so that no visible (to the human eye) loss of contact occurs. The advancing leg shall be straightened (i.e. not bent at the knee) from the moment of first contact with the ground until the vertical upright position.
Although this is the rule under which we now operate, it would be
naïve to think that this version is the definitive one. The rules
governing racewalking have changed on numerous occasions as the sport
continuously reinvents itself to maintain its credibility on the
international athletics stage. I am sure that we will see future
variations of how we define racewalking and how we judge it. Will
electronic devices be eventually used to detect loss of contact? Will
video be used in a similar way to the third umpire in cricket?.
Whatever the future holds, the basic tenet of ‘fair heel and
toe’ remains just as relevant today as when first promulgated
many years ago.
Tim Erickson
24 June 2004
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