JUST THE WAY they were done in ’21, the 20K walk Trials were staged over a 1K road loop around downtown Springfield. And just the way he did in ’21, event organizer/racewalk super-guru Tracy Sundlun massed a sizable crowd of walk-appreciators who lined the course for the 7:30 am start.
It was déjà-vu all over again on the men’s results sheet, too. Ten of the ’21 top-dozen were back in action in ’24.
Claiming his thirty-third career national walk crown (at distances from a mile to 50K) Californian Nick Christie was a whole lot faster than he was 3 years back (1:24.46 this time; 1:30:48 in ’21) but received no such five-ringed reward.
He was 50th in that Tokyo (err… Sapporo) ’20K but is far down the World Athletics rankings list this time (and just 48 will do the 12.4-miler in Paris.)
Still, Christie retains just one long-shot hope of competing in the Games, and that’s in the new-fangled. gimmicky two-person, male-female marathon (42.2K) relay team walk, where he and Miranda Melville rank 30th globally.
One possible challenge: If the five track relays (4×1 and 4×4) are limited to just one team per nation, why does the walk relay allow two? And why will this hike around the Tour de Eiffel vicinity be limited to 25 teams?
Should all last-ditch efforts fail, though, this would be the first-ever Olympic walk without a USA presence. And that’s a 120-year span — since an 880y walk was held as one of the 10 events in the all-around event at St. Louis 1904.
Christie reeled off 2:05/2:06-ish Ks early on, passed halfway in 41:36 and breezed home. Rising temps took a slight toll and limited him to a 43:10 second 10K but the verdict was settled long before that as he claimed his third straight win.
“Any other year I’d be qualifying for the Olympics,” he lamented. “It’s just like 2024 is the hardest year ever for the walk.”
Two-time past national 20K king Emmanuel “Natos” Corvera broke away from the trailing pack to claim 2nd in 1:30:15 with bright newer-comer Jordan Crawford 3rd in 1:30:52.
Special plaudits went to Allen James, the 60-year-old 2-time Olympian (1992-96) who wound up 14th in 1:43.26 as the oldest athlete in the entire meet and — subject to ratification — the oldest athlete ever in the Trials.
He’d walked the 20K at Barcelona ’92 and the 50K at Atlanta ’96, then headed into decades of semi-retirement. “My aging knees felt it out there,” James said. “Specially so going around those tight turns.”
MEN’S 20K WALK RESULTS
FINAL (June 29)
(1K road loop in Springfield)
1. Nick Christie (NYAC) 1:24:46 (AL)
(20:42, 20:54 [41:36], 20:33 [1:03:09], 21:37) (41:36/42:10);
2. Emmanuel Corvera (NYAC) 1:30:15;
3. Jordan Crawford (RalW) 1:30:52;
4. Jason Cherng (NEW) 1:31:17;
5. Dan Nehnevaj (RalW) 1:33:58;
6. John Risch (QE) 1:35:52;
7. AJ Gruttadauro (Shore) 1:37:10;
8. Bricyn Healey (RalW) 1:38:07;
9. Joel Pfahler (DaytTC) 1:39:34; 10. Nathan Limas (unat) 1:40:12; 11. Jeremy Bloom (RalW) 1:40:51; 12. Michael Mannozzi (USAF) 1:41:44; 13. Juan Montanez (unat) 1:42:45; 14. Allen James (SoCalTC) 1:43:26; 15. Pablo Gomez (TS) 1:51:21; 16. Clayton Stoil (VaHS) 1:51:31.
