Monday, Jun. 14, 1948
One Foot on the Ground
For Olympic hopefuls, the big push was just beginning. Final tryouts in 134 events --from bicycling to canoeing--will be run off before the S.S. America sails next month for London with its cargo of 375 U.S. athletes.
At New York City's Van Cortlandt Park this week, a serious-faced group of aspirants--with bare legs and a sprinkling of bald heads--lined up for the big tryout in the 10,000-meter walking race. At the start, a few irreverent spectators began to snicker. The walkers, strutting along with exaggerated hip-wiggles, took no notice. They are used to playing to laughs every time they perform.
The remarkable thing about walkers is their deceptively fast speed--8 m.p.h.--about twice as fast as the average person's brisk walk, and two-thirds as fast as the best men run a mile. The trick is to whip up a hot pace while keeping the toe of one foot on the ground until the other heel hits (both feet cannot be off the ground simultaneously).
Unlike most other sports, walking is not necessarily limited to the very young. At the halfway mark, balding, 40-year-old Ernest Weber, a Manhattan delivery man, was bustling along like a jet-propelled dowager in a huff. One of the favorites, he used a lot of hip-shimmy ("It gives you a longer stride"), and piston-like arm motion ("I try to think I am pulling on a rope"). His eyes were busy too, watching a German refugee (now a U.S. citizen) named Henry Laskau, the man in the lead. Laskau, who took up walking as a sport only two years ago, used less wiggle and a giant stride.
With five laps to go, Laskau began walking away with the race. In third place, Weber's wiggles were becoming less pronounced. (Says he: "If you run fast and you get tired, then you can walk. If you walk fast you get completely exhausted, and there's nothing for you to do but sit down.") Laskau won by about 75 yards over Fred Sharaga, 38, who had taken three weeks off from his engineering job to train for the race. Weber came in third. That qualified all three to be named as the team to walk for the U.S. in London this summer. The U.S. has not won an Olympic walking race for 42 years.
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