The first fight of the year between Martínková and Ďurdiaková on a 20km walk this Saturday in Antalya, Turkey. Will at least one of them manage to make it to the 20km track at the Paris Olympics? 

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On Saturday 20.1. In 2024, the first race of the year Race walking world tour will take place in Antalya, Turkey. The race in Antalya has a bronze level, so the winners can add interesting points to the qualification rankings.

Last year, the race, which usually only takes place in February, was marred by a devastating earthquake that literally shook the southeastern part of Turkey. The race was postponed, but it was still marked by low participation. Many Turkish walking clubs come from earthquake affected areas.

The year 2024 is exceptional for athletes. OH and European Championship in Rome, WC of walking teams in Antalya in April. For the organizers, Saturday's race is a trial test, for the walkers an opportunity to gain points and improve their position in the rankings for various races.

At the start in Antalya on Saturday, almost a hundred male and female athletes will be presented on the turning circuit, which is located on the road near the EXPA, and the competitors can therefore look forward to perfect asphalt.

 At 10:00 a.m. Turkish time (12 o'clock ours, Turkey has not changed time since 2016), men and women will line up for the 20 km walk.

The biggest home draw will be the starting post of junior competitor Hayrettin Yildiz. He is crowned with a whole series of medals from the junior category. Last year, as a junior, he tried 20 km in Alytus and showed an excellent time of 1:27:08. On Christmas Day, literally a few weeks ago, the Turkish NR U 20 went, when he went 10 m in 000:40. At that time, he finished 26 seconds behind Mazlum Demir, who did not break the 25-minute barrier by just a second and will be one of the favorites in Antalya. OR sub 40:1 from last year's Poděbrady will want to improve. It will be interesting to see what kind of performance they will pull together with Demir. Slovak representatives Morvay and Úradník will want to at least step on their heels, or even better, beat both Turks. The official improved his OR in the autumn in Zittau, but for the OH ev. he needs more fast races to be sure of a start in Rome. Morvay, on the other hand, will go to the race encouraged by the little people from training and will certainly want to demonstrate that his transformation into a twentysomething is on the right track.

Among the women, there will be a star Turkish trio and also a Czech star duo at the start. The tiny Turks can be very fast, Meryem Bekmez is last year's champion from the Universiade, but she is also a former ME U 23 and has other medals from her junior years. She, too, will want, together with the U 23 champion from Sweden's Gävle Tekdal, to fight for Olympic safety. Kader Dost will not feel left behind either. The Ukrainian competitor Sholomitska will try for the top twenty (10 km as a junior she walked steadily at the level of 46 minutes). And Eliška Martínková, the Czech number one in the 20 km, will also strive for points in the ranking and to improve her position. She went to Antalya encouraged by the performance from the Jablonec hall.Tereza Durďiaková will also be at the start, who at the moment does not even have a theoretical guarantee of the Olympics, because she does not have enough fast twenties on her account and thus needs not only to come, but also to show a quality performance. She also showed herself in an excellent light in Jablonec and she will want to follow up on the race. One of the favorites of the race is Slovak competitor Mária Katarinka Czaková, who performed sub 1:32 at the December race in Dublin and thanks to the victory and a sufficient number of points, she is currently in the Olympics. However, she knows very well that the spring series of races will bring a whirlwind of great performances, and the female competitors in the fifth ten of the ranking (including our Martínková) will still have to fight a lot for their position.

At 12:35, the U20 and U18 competitors in the 10 km walk will start. He will strive for quality performance from our female competitors Ema Klimentová, who showed excellent form in Jablonec and will fight for the performance that would enable her to start at the MSJ in Lima (47:00). She will be accompanied at the start by her training partner Elizabeth Frankl.

Competitors from UKR, KAZ, CZE, SVK, RO, as well as Hungary and Ireland will start in Antalya. On the day of the race, a link to the on-line interim results should be published on the website of the Turkish Athletics Federation. We wish not only our athletes a quick step and the organizers a successful race. The race will also be a test of new Turkish referees of an international level, because the Turks also expanded the number of those who are on the international panel in the fall.

SMOLA KONSTRUKCE and AC RUMBURK RENEW THE COOPERATION FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE ENTIRE CZECH-GERMAN WALK!!!!

At the end of October last year, the next edition of the LUSATIAN INTERNATIONAL RACE WALKING MEETING took place under the organizational baton of AC Rumburk and German partners from O-SEE Sports in Zittau.

The beautiful race attracted a number of elite and masters athletes, who praised not only the excellent organization, but also the beautiful race circuit. The appreciation of the organizers' work also came from abroad, when Pierce O'Callaghan (head of World Athletics competition management) sent not only a personal congratulations, but also a suggestion whether the organizers would like to request a change of status from a bronze to a silver meeting next year. Which also happened and Žitava will be silver for next year! This places increased demands on the organizers in terms of securing the meeting, but the team united around Jan Rein and Jens Schoening will surely cope with the pitfalls of the Silver level.

At the same time came the unpleasant news for many MASTERS athletes. It was decided that masters athletes will no longer start at a distance of 30 km, the longest distance will be the classic twenty.

And so the first idea came from Josef Smola, whether the MASTERS 30 could be at the German-Czech race.

Word got around and the organizers are happy to announce that in addition to the classic distances of 1 / 2 / 3 / 5 / 10 / 20 / 35 km, there will also be a 30 km Masters for male and female athletes at the Zittau race!

The general partner not only of this inserted race, but of the entire Silver level walking meeting, is the great promoter, sponsor and walking lover Josef Smola and his company SMOLA KONSTRUKCE!!! SMOLA KONSTRUKCE thus adding another quality race to its portfolio of supported races. Admirable in a time of difficult economic conditions.

Work on a meeting of a similar level begins even before the end of the previous year, so it is not surprising that that 10.1. In 2024, the first working meeting between Smola and Rein took place. In the past, Jan Rein helped Pep with the Hodinovka, but having Prague organizers from Rumburk is quite impractical (although the Rumburaks managed it with ease) and the traditional Hodinovka so Smola Konstrukce organized together with enthusiasts from AC Praha 1890 led by Kateřina Kautska. And rightly so. AC Rumburk should not cover, figuratively speaking, half of the pedestrian races in our country (they also participate in Poděbrady), let's be happy for other enthusiastic organizers who have been working selflessly for pedestrians for many years.

October duel Pražská chodecká Hodinovka a SMOLA KONSTRUKCE - Lusatian Race walking meeting will take place on 19.10. and 26.10. 2024.

The organizers of both races are already looking forward to your participation. We wish both races all the best in the coming years.

The 2024 CR XNUMX League Walking Schedule is out - a good thing has been done!!! 

Dear and kind pedestrian friends,

after our open letter regarding the unpublished deadline, an avalanche broke out. Not entirely pleasant and with statements that everyone can find out for themselves... We are not going to bother with it anymore. However, we are very happy. A document was added to the Competitions section. 

Term sheet  (as of 9.1.2024/XNUMX/XNUMX). And here, finally, walking figures. The races also appeared in the calendar.

And so that every competitor does not have to play detective and look for where the above is actually written on the website, ev. scroll through the calendar every month, we list the dates of the league rounds.

The good thing has been done, everything is published and we can all start planning the calendar.

Dates of the league rounds in 2024:

28.04. NEW TOWN ABOVE METUJIA

            I. round of walking for the extra league, I. and II. men's and women's league - 10.000m and 5.000m on the track

12.05. OLOMOUC

            II. round of walking for extraliga, I. and II. men's and women's league - 10km, 5km, 3km, 1km on the circuit, unfortunately there will be no 20km! 

01.06. PRAGUE - SATALICE

           III. walking wheel for I. and II. men's and women's league - 10 km on the circuit

03.08. Brno

           IV. walking wheel for I. and II. men's and women's league - 10 km on the circuit

It can be assumed that this time there will not be a 20 km distance as part of the extra league, as was the case in 2023 in Olomouc. Races are held in Nové Město on tracks with a length of 5 m and 000 m, and according to the information from the organizers of Olomouc, we know that they expect the length of the tracks to be 10 / 000 / 1 / 3 km.

RANKINGS - Deutscher Geherpokal 2023  

Dear and kind pedestrian friends,

we would like to start the first article of this year with something optimistic and pleasant. After all, Czech walking deserves it and needs positive words like salt. Unfortunately, the situation does not allow something similar!!!

In recent weeks, there have been many questions about whether anyone has any idea how it will be with the league rounds and competition dates in 2024. The question of why these questions are not directed to the responsible persons - members of the competition committee - is quite relevant. Unfortunately, the answer is classic fear. Most interviewers are afraid to speak up so they don't end up being the complainer. Possibly so that someone doesn't get angry with them and they don't have to worry that they won't finish the race. Such fears are probably just an irrational need, when we all want to be liked by those around us, but unfortunately this is how we got here.

Due to the information vacuum regarding the team competition, we have decided to write an open letter to the chairman of the competition commission, Mr. Veverko, because the schedule for the league rounds on the track is already known from 20.12.2023, and unfortunately the pedestrian one is still on the ČAS website in no document or calendar does not appear.

We are attaching the text of the open letter in its entirety and we hope that the situation regarding the zero information will be rectified soon.

Lucie Nekulová and Josef Smola

Dear Mr. Squirrel,

I take the liberty of addressing you with this open letter, given your position as chairman of the competition commission.

The competition committee is responsible for drawing up the schedule for the following year. On 20.12.2023/XNUMX/XNUMX

the date of the athletic competitions of adult teams of all league levels was officially published. League competitions on the track will start on 11.5.2024. and athletes who want to help their clubs earn league points can plan their calendar.

Unfortunately, the published document completely lacks information about the dates of the pedestrian competitions, which are directly linked to the league rounds. Walking races usually start well in advance.

Last year, the league even started on April 2.4. If we take into account that in recent years, league pedestrian competitions have never started later than mid-April, and at the same time, the fact that the first pedestrian round has to take place before May 11.5 is quite surprising when the competitions on the track already have dates, and the walkers still haven't seen their date sheet published.

Most of the participants in the first and second league races are working people who need to combine their love of athletics with their work and personal lives, so planning is key for them. Masters athletes then need to know whether they will be able to participate in top competitions of their age level, or whether they will be needed in the league.

After last year's deadline found its bottom, because the organizer of one of the league competitions only found out about the official allocation of the league competition from a published document, we went down another unexplored path, when traditional organizers are sent messages asking if anyone has already spoken to them about the league . I dare to express the opinion that such a painstaking search for information regarding how things will actually be with the league is, to put it mildly, undignified.

So would it be possible to officially publish the dates of league competitions for pedestrian disciplines as well? If this is possible for track competitions 5 months before the start of the first race, there is perhaps no relevant reason why it could not be the same for pedestrian competitions.

The open letter will be published on the website smolachuze.cz, given the growing number of inquiries as to whether anyone has any idea how the league will fare.

Thank you for your time and hopefully correcting the current situation.

Lucie Nekulova

In recent weeks, a number of events have taken place in world walking that deserve our attention.

 Referees for the 2024 Olympics in Paris have been selected. The corps of pedestrian judges will consist of seven members, 4 men will be supplemented by 3 women, and the scorer will be the former Slovak pedestrian Zuzana Costin (formerly Malíková). Among the men, Frederic Bianchi will hold the referee's targets, whom Czech pedestrians had the opportunity to meet, for example, at the 2021 European Championship of Walking Teams, and this year Frederic accepted Pepa Smola's invitation to the Prague clockwork. A week later, he assessed the technical performance of the athletes in Zittau.

Another name from Poděbrady is Steve Taylor from Great Britain. The representatives of French athletics Jean-Pierre Dahm and Daniel Michaud (CAN) will also judge. Echo Yeung, who represents Hong Kong, will also judge, Kirsten Crocker will come from Australia and Dolores Rojas from Spain.

Among the referees of all races we can also find the name of Emannuel Tardi, who refereed and competed in Poděbrady and is also a referee in the Czech-German Zittau.

In Dublin, Ireland, on the traditional December date, 17.12. bronze level meeting,

which is also the Irish Championship. The main organizer of that race is none other than Pierce O'Callaghan. After last year's windstorm, this year Dublin welcomed the competitors with de facto ideal racing weather. The biggest star of this meeting is traditionally Perseus Karlström, who is a ward of the Irish elite walker of the past Robert Heffernan.

The Swedish viking, after last year's suffering at the 35 km distance, signed up for the 20 km race this year. On the turning circuit, he showed a start-to-finish style performance that few expected in December. Time  1:18:39

is a repeated confirmation of the OH limit. In second place, Noel Chama from Mexico also performed very well - 1:20:05. Partanen from Finland, who was third at the finish line, could also enjoy his performance 27 seconds below the 81 minute mark. Hungarian competitor Norbert Tóth crossed the finish line in eighth place. After his record-breaking performance at the Pražská hodinovka, he decided to withdraw from the race in Zittau and preferred to prepare for Dublin. He reached a new OR of 1:24:22 and can currently train with the prospect of the EC in Rome. 23 competitors saw the finish line. A whole number of walkers, including Slovaks Morvay and Úradník, did not finish the race.

A huge surprise was born among the women. There was no doubt that Mária Katarinka Czaková was one of the favorites. This season, the Slovak athlete is still getting back into shape after giving birth last year, but she is not leaving anything to the last minute and is fighting hard for her next participation in the Olympics.

After performing sub 1:37 in the Slovak national championship on the track in October and then third place in Zittau, she managed a perfect, in fact Olympic, shot. From the beginning of the race, she was in the leading group, she flew through the second ten in sub 45 minutes and in her second career best time - 1:31:42, she managed not only a clear victory, but also a real Olympic hope. She was only 2 seconds short of the sharp limit for the EC in Rome, and thanks to the bonus points, she is not only in Rome at the moment, but also in Paris! Sure, it will still be a tough fight in the spring, but her starting position through 2024 is excellent.

Greek pedestrian Tsinopoulou was more than 3 1/2 minutes back for second place, and third place was taken by another Greek woman, Fiaska, with a performance of over 1:37. 15 female athletes saw the finish line.

In the inserted 10 km race, we had the opportunity to see the return of the British walker Callum Wilkinson, who is returning after prolonged health problems. With a time of 42:18, he is still behind his previous performance, but it shows that his preparation is going in the right direction.

Slovak athletes Bátovský / Dudová dominated the 10 km youth race.

However, what was most interesting in Dublin is the first Olympic relay in Europe. Around the world, competitors on the South American continent and in Osaka, Japan have already tried the relay, but it was the first time in Europe. And it was definitely something to look at. 4 teams applied - SVK, Ireland, Finland and Hungary.

From the beginning, the home team consisting of Brendan Boyce (he dominated the top ten in Olomouc this year) and Kate Veale was in the lead. The Finnish walkers Jokinen - Veikkola kept up with them. Men walked the first 12 km section, followed by three 10 km long sections. Slovak competitors started more cautiously and their strategy was to accelerate in the second half. The prudent start paid off and the pair Černý - Burzalová reduced the lead of the leading teams. The Slovaks entered the last ten in second place with a loss of more than a minute to the leader of the Irish. With a concentrated performance, Burzalová managed not only to outrun the Irish woman, but also to give her 31 seconds. The time of 3:11:17 is sixth in the world at the moment, but that doesn't mean anything, given the way the Olympics are qualified. However, the Slovaks gained valuable experience for the spring fight for Paris.

Overall, it can be said that our neighbors' strategy with a number of national championships in the fall is working out. If we add to that their form, which they sold in Zittau and Dublin (the Zittau race was highly praised by the organization, Dublin was also evaluated very negatively on the association's website),

then their chances of participating in Paris, when they have the chance to take additional bonus points thanks to the championships next year, more than real. In Antalya, if the races in Dudince and Poděbrady are solidly taken, they will also be able to fight for the relay. We can only envy their drive to the goal and their strategic thinking.

However, the December races do not end in Dublin. 24.12. there was a race in a Turkish city Adana.

Turks do not celebrate Christmas, although we can see a Christmas tree everywhere in Turkey. However, it is called Yılbaşı ağağı (New Year's tree) there, so the Turks could go to the races on Christmas Day instead of wrapping carp. The race took place in the stadium and the main distances were 10 m distance. Among the men, Mazlum Demir managed to win in just 000 second over 1 minutes. Behind him for the U40 national record was the third from this year's Poděbrady, Hayrettin Yildiz. The performance of 20:40 is a significant personal record for the nineteen-year-old athlete. The first 26,5 juniors went under 3 minutes.

Among the women, tiny Ayše Tekdal won in a training pace of 47:43,9.

The competitions took place under the strict supervision of new judges of international level. Gaye Bekler, son of national team coach Serhat Akyavaş, passed the tests for the silver level in the autumn term.

and Yeliz AY Yildiz, a participant in the 1998 Olympic Games in Atlanta or the WC in Poděbrady.

In addition to road races, the indoor season is also starting. In Slovakia, a 3000 m long race was held in Banská Bystrica. Slovakian Burzalová set a personal record of 13:22.0, among men Dominik Černý won with a time of 11:35,4.

And one more very interesting news came from abroad. Today, former elite walker Tom Bosworth from Great Britain has become a Member of the Order of the British Empire. He received the award from King Charles not only for his results, but above all for his unceasing work in popularizing walking, which has a real impact on the community, and Tom was and is an example to others with his work. Tom is the first walker to receive this award. For the uninitiated, Tom was the one who first introduced walking to the Diamond League (first in 2017). In Britain he took part in a number of shows where he taught celebrities how to walk, competed in various races with runners and significantly increased the air time that walking is on TV in Britain! Even in walking retirement, he is still a very popular and active spokesperson for the walking community in Britain. He has never been afraid to talk about controversial topics (more than 10 years ago he publicly came out to the LGBT community, which was not common for male athletes at that time), the topic of mental health is also important to him (he can talk publicly about a suicide attempt), but he still and above all remains a prominent figure in walking sports and continues to promote our discipline in recruitment events.

Walking December is a thing of the past and soon we will start counting the first hours of the Olympic year 2024.

The first races will traditionally take place on January 1.1. in Japan.

We wish all our athletes, not only the elite ones, good health until 2024. Everything else is just up to the athletes and their training morale.

So below is another photo from this year's last training session 31.12.2023, 18:XNUMX, Schöneben, Austria (.....and tomorrow we continue....!)

We wish everyone a successful entry into 2024 and lots of health, happiness and joy in it / Wir wünschen allen einen guten Rutsch ins Jahr 2024 und dafür Gesundheit, Glück und Freude.