07.11.2007

Deakes defends his discipline

Four-time Commonwealth champion Nathan Deakes has spoken out against the proposal to exclude race walking from the program of the next two editions of the games.

The 30 year-old, who remains in Europe, believes that false figures are being used to justify the Commonwealth Games Federation’s (CGF) argument that race walking’s place has “come under pressure because of the consistently low number of entries and the relative costs to support them.”

Deakes has made a formal submission to the CGF’s sports commission expressing his concern - highlighting that 10 competitors undertook the 20km and 50km race walking competitions at Melbourne 2006.

The CGF had suggested that “the only time in the last two Commonwealth Games where entries in any race walking or synchronised swimming event has reached double figures was when 10 women contested the 20km walk in Manchester in 2002.”

Deakes also claimed that many other sports competitions in the games have similar numbers of entries. For example, he said, the men’s pole vault competition at the 2006 games featured just seven competitors, while the women’s 4x100m relay featured just six teams.

In the pool, the men's 1500m freestyle had nine competitors from six countries, the men's 400m freestyle 12 and the 4x100m freestyle just eight.

These participation figures are available on the CGF's website.

“The norm is 10 to 12 competitors, and for the CGF to try to claim that as the main reason [for excluding race walking] is very disappointing,” he said.

However, CGF chief executive Mike Hooper saw it differently.

“The issue is the consistent low level of entries across the board for race walking and synchronised swimming since the introduction of the events,” he said.

“What may have affected participation levels is the introduction of two distances for men, the 20km and the 50km race. A possible compromise which has been suggested by a number of people is to go back to one event.”

As a result, men would be consistent with women, who contest just the 20km distance.

Hooper, who also stressed that a decision had not been made, noted that “the challenge for race walking is to get more athletes.”

The CGF, holding its general assembly in Colombo, Sri Lanka, has begun a review of a request to exclude race walking and synchronised swimming from the sports program of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. The request from the games organising committee followed a recommendation by the CGF sports committee that the disciplines should be excluded from all games, beginning with those of 2014.

According to Deakes, Delhi had argued that it would face “logistical problems” in staging race walking; problems that could be “easily overcome.”

As for Glasgow and Abuja, the two cities vying to stage the games in 2014, the former had already undertaken work on the scheduling of race walking if its bid is successful.

Deakes defended the long-term place of race walking in the games, arguing that if the games wanted to be regarded as a reputable competition, then they should note that race walking has the support of both the International Association of Athletics Federations - the sport’s world governing body - and the International Olympic Committee.

The 2006 Commonwealth Games saw Australia dominate the race walking. Deakes won both the men’s 20km and 50km events, with countrymen Luke Adams (2nd), Jared Tallent (3rd) and Chris Erickson (3rd) earning places respectively. The women’s 20km event welcomed an Australian trifecta of Jane Saville, Natalie Saville and Cheryl Webb.

Courtesy nathandeakes.com, Sportcal.com (Callum Murray and Jack Leather)