What Is It Like to Be a Race-Walking Judge?

In the hierarchy of thankless Olympic jobs, judging race-walking events would easily take the top step.

Duties entail staring at feet and kneecaps for hours—eyeballing for infractions—and if three or more judges find what they're looking for, the chief judge must deliver the ultimate buzzkill.

The two cardinal rules of race walking are: don't lift both feet off the ground at the same time, and keep the leading knee straight from the moment the foot hits the ground until it is directly under the body.

Famous case: At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Jane Saville of Australia was leading the 20-kilometer race with about 200 meters to go. Just as she was about to enter the stadium and seize the gold medal, a man in a white hat stepped into her path. He flashed a red paddle and, like that, the nation's heroine-to-be was disqualified after one hour and 27 minutes of racing.

To this day, the public thinks Saville was running. But that's not so. "I was just race waking incorrectly," she explained.

Saville's crime was that two judges had given her a red card for "loss of contact" with the ground, and one judge had spied a bent knee.

Sixteen years later, Saville, who won the bronze medal in the 20km walk in Athens in 2004, disputes the call. "I can understand the contact [infraction]," she said, "but I don't understand the knee. I don't bend my knee! It may give that impression, but it's not bent!"

In 2014, rather than gripe about it, she became a judge. And when she worked at last year's Australian nationals, her new colleagues joked, "Welcome to the dark side!"

Saville will not be among the eight Rio Olympic judges spaced out along the 20km and 50km looped courses on August 12th and 19th. Only 26 people in the world are qualified to do so: those who have done well enough on written, oral, and video tests to earn a Level III certification.

Many judges in that elite circle are ex-race walkers, but not Daniel Michaud of Canada. Michaud has been a Level III judge since 1993, and Rio will mark his second (unpaid) Olympic gig. The allure for him, he said, is that "it's thrilling to see people walking for 50 kilometers without stopping. It interests me from a biomechanic viewpoint."

But race day can be brutal. Maryanne Daniel, a Level III judge from Connecticut (who was not assigned to these Olympics), said, "Because I'm still athletic, standing still is very difficult for me."

Another challenge is that the role is so subjective. Video replay is not allowed.

"You have about a 45-degree angle where you can start judging," Michaud said. "You see maybe three or four strides and you've got to make up your mind on that."

If there is any uncertainty, judges must give the athlete the benefit of the doubt—and sometimes the benefit has nothing to do with form. Twelve years ago, at the Athens Olympics, Daniel rented an apartment on the course, and every morning she noticed a group of "very friendly little old ladies [in] dark dresses and babushkas who told us they were upset that the course was down their street."

Yet the day of the men's 50km race walk, the women saw an athlete get sick and grew very concerned.

"One rushed in the house as fast as her heavy black orthopedic shoes would carry her," Daniel said, and she came back with a cup of water and a washcloth. "She tenderly wiped his face and was urging him to sip. When a tall official yelled at her, she fired back and shook her fist as if to say, 'This boy is hurting and I am going to help!'" Humbled, the official walked away. Another walked over shaking his finger and "she attacked him with even more ferocity, and he, too, walked away smiling, shaking his head."

The athlete recovered, finished the race—"in a decent place," Daniel said, "and curiously none of the officials filed a disqualification," even though the scenario violated every rule about receiving aid on course.

In addition to collecting great anecdotes, there are other perks (or quasi-perks) of being a judge. At the 2012 London Olympics, Michaud was stationed in front of Buckingham Palace, but, he said, "when the race started, I forgot where I was, and I was judging. You can't be idle and gaze around."

On the flip side, there are indignities, such as the time Michaud was chief judge of the men's 50km race at the 1997 World Championships. As such, he had to be near the stadium entrance at the end of the race. And as chief, he was the only one who could disqualify an athlete. When a slower-moving Belgian athlete received his third red card, Michaud was too far away to notify him. So the Belgian walked for another hour—all the way to the 49.5-km mark—before he was shown the red paddle and ordered to stop.

"He ripped off his numbers, threw them at me, and spat in my face," Michaud said.

"I can understand," he added. "There's nothing worse than an athlete walking for nothing."

Michaud picked up the number, and still has it, 19 years later.

And there are hecklers. "It helps when you don't know the language," Michaud said. But one time, at a race in Mexico, he knew enough Spanish to understand the chants of "Rata, rata, rata!"

"So I was a rat," he said. "But I was fortunate. At that competition, we moved locations, so at least I was only heckled for an hour. Then someone else was the rata."

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