“What we know for sure is that there will be a mixed test at the Games, which we do not know in what format it will be. A lot of controversy is being generated about this, but more than fear there is a certain concern. At the moment we have the date and time set for there to be two walking events in Paris 2024. That’s why we don’t want to anticipate and think that they can take one away from us because it’s on the Olympic calendar. what yes What we want to know soon is how this mixed format will be because preparing a 35 is not the same as preparing a relay that can be half the distance. In my head the option is to double and play the 20th and the mixed race, whatever it may be”, assures Raquel González, runner-up in Europe for the 35 km walk in Munich 2022, to AS.
The 33-year-old Catalan explains the general feeling of the march. The new distance of 35 km that replaced from the Oregon World Championships at 50 showed that the specialists of 20 were better acclimatized than those of the extinct distance with an exact repetition of the women’s podium and an athlete also doubling the medal in the men’s. Paris is on the horizon and the IOC has gone one step further by reducing the total number of events in the Games, relying on gender parity and leaving only the distance of 20 plus a mixed relay of 35. The date is set: August 7 2024, 7:30 am on the Pont d’Iena in Paris, on the waters of the Seine. But… what will the format be like? Here is the mess.
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“It will be a relay focused on men and women. We are still in discussions with the IOC, but there are still issues that we are working on. As soon as we have information, we will give it, “said Sebastian Coe, President of World Athletics. Since then many months have passed. “It will be finished very soon because it has to be tested before Paris and the athletes have to know exactly what to prepare,” added Jon Ridgeon, CEO. 16 months after the celebration, nobody knows anything.
“The IOC criteria is clear and there must be gender equality and equal opportunities, so it has to be a mixed test because more medals cannot be incorporated into the program. It is negotiating to define how it will be. We are all at the expense of that decision because our athletes and coaches are also waiting to see how to prepare it”, explained Raúl Chapado, president of the RFEA, to this newspaper a few days ago. And he added: “Sometimes the decisions also come based on the demands of each championship. Each event owner, and not all have the same, sets their requirements and the international federations try to adapt.. All sports have undergone evolution and change always generates controversy; It is logical, but the International Federation will work and fight for the future of this discipline, although it will have to take into account the demands of the organizer. In the case of the Games, the IOC is the owner of the rights to the event and has great decision-making power”.
“All sports have undergone evolution and change always generates controversy; It is logical, but the International Federation will work and fight for the future of this discipline”.
“A couple of years ago they put me in a group to give ideas with athletes and coaches from different countries, but each one proposed what they thought would benefit them the most,” says Diego García Carrera, European bronze in 20 km, to ‘ Runners World’. Right now There are two plans on the table: a mixed relay with a man and a woman without specifying whether each one would run half or the times would be added for a global calculation and a test with the distance of the marathon (42,195 km) with a format of two relays per athlete of 10.5 km with delivery of baton plus 195 meters that the last relay would carry out. Two antagonistic systems when preparing athletes.
