How a dog and a cat cooked a cake, or the Olympic marathon walking relay

In recent years, walking has been going through a turbulent period. In truth, the whole of athletics, which is somehow disappearing from the audience, sponsors are decreasing and the earnings of professional athletes are decreasing. And so marketing specialists come up with change after change. One of the pitfalls is the DNA competition, which is understood perhaps only by its authors and meets with zero interest from the audience.

Unfortunately, the charades did not escape even the walk, and there were well-known changes. In the end, not even 35 km was recognized as a breath-taking performance, and for the Olympic Games in Paris, marketers came up with an idea that is most likely based on the indisputable success of the biathlon mix relays, and especially the mix relay of quarter runners.

We can hear from supporters of zero innovations that it is a scam and no one takes it seriously. However, this relay is very popular and popular with the wider public. In a few years, no one will know that it was once a novelty received with embarrassment.

While the running relay has a clear order and logic, the walking relay lacks this. The popular marathon distance, when the name marathon has become so profane that many organizers, in an attempt to attract competitors, do not hesitate to call the 10 km distance a quarter marathon, was also used for pedestrians. And not exactly divided between men and women. Unfortunately, the decision about the relay came only this year, and it is completely scandalous that unofficial information about what the rules of the race will look like comes less than a year before the Olympic competition. In the previous days, the first information was published by a former Irish pedestrian and one of the main representatives of World athletics - Pierce O'Callaghan.

The number of starting teams at the Olympics is a well-known fact. There should be 25 of them in Paris. 22 teams will qualify according to the results of the WC walking teams, which will be held on 21.4. in Antalya, Turkey. The possibility of starting two teams for one country will be allowed for a maximum of five countries. The next three teams will be nominated according to the results. Which ones are still uncertain.

But what will be the rules of the given relay?

A male-female team will take the start and this team will split the marathon distance. Individual sections will be run in the order of man - woman - man - woman. Each of the competitors must walk at least 20 km. The length of the sections can be approx. 11,45 - 10 -10 - 10,745.

The finish line of the individual sections will be marked with a line with a width of at least 50 mm. 10m in front of this line and 10m behind it there will be similar lines marking the transfer area. The handoff will be implemented by touching between the two competitors. Unless otherwise ordered by the organizer. In other words, if physical contact would be a problem in some countries, the organizer can come up with something else... If someone has the impression that it will be conjured, maybe the organizers will choose different colors. Yes, there are also many lines in the stadium, but here it is also necessary to take into account the marking of refreshment stations, and the start to the subsequent sections will be from different places of the racing circuit.

Judges are an integral part of walking competitions. The reprimand system will be identical. However, the penalty will not apply to individual athletes, but to the entire team. After 3 expulsion proposals, the team will be penalized with 3 minutes. For the fourth, fifth and sixth suggestions, the team will always be penalized with an additional penalty minute. With 6 proposals, the competitors stand for a full 6 minutes.

A team will be disqualified on the seventh ejection proposal. Each referee can give each individual one motion for disqualification. If we use an example from the Czech meadows and groves, if the referee František Párys gives a proposal to exclude Vít Hlaváč at the fifth kilometer, he cannot give him a proposal any further. But he can give one suggestion to Eliška Martínková, who starts in the team with Vítek (the names used are completely random).

It is not yet known what the zone will look like for the waiting athletes, who will de facto have 45 minutes between individual sections. The size of the warm-up area will most likely be based on the possibilities of the organizers.

According to internal information, 2 Czech relay teams will compete for a place at the Olympics. The best of them will go to the Olympics, in case of qualification. Realistically, it cannot be counted on that the Czech competitors will be among those who grab 2 places for the team.

The opportunity to start in the relay is said to be given to the 2 fastest men over 10 km. For women the situation is clear, we have only 2 women who are able to compete at an adequate level. For the men, the trio Hlaváč - Morávek - Zajíček will most likely fight for places in the relay (in alphabetical order).

What does the above imply? Most countries will probably throw their strongest athletes into relay races at the WC in Turkey. 20 km will be run by those who do not make it into the relays, or those who do not have a counterpart of the corresponding level (e.g. Canadian Dunfee or Swedish Karlstöm). Most of the competitors will be nominated for individual competitions at other competitions. The hunt for points in the leaderboard has already begun. E.g. The Slovaks very cleverly intend to grab as many points as possible from highly subsidized championship competitions. And so in the spring they had 10km on the road, a week ago there was a championship competition for 10m, on the weekend there is a 000m race and the best Slovaks are going to Zittava, Germany, because reports from last year speak of a de facto perfect course comparable only to that Poděbradská. Whether any of the Czech representatives will appear is a question, so far a pair of last year's juniors - duo Morávek - Zajíček - have been registered as relay candidates.

Now is the time for coaches to prepare and figure out how to actually train for this news.

We wish all our candidates for the Olympic Games a successful start in Antalya, and even if most fans are somewhat embarrassed by the news, we would still like to see the Czech relay team at the Olympic Games. Let the fastest and most technically confident start in it.