News

After winning a number of medals at the National Senior games in June, HRW sent two of its walkers who had been training together to compete at the international level in Sacramento in July. BJ Thornburg and Alan Poisner entered this biannual event that attracted 4600 track and field athletes from 64 countries.

On July 7 they raced the 5000-meter walk at Sacramento City College. It was hot but not as bad as in Houston two weeks earlier. BJ came in 11th out of 26 of the best walkers in the world in the 65-69 division. There were 12 countries represented outside the U.S. Alan jumped out to a big lead in his race and was able to hold it to take the Gold in the 75-79 division. Trailing him for the Silver and Bronze were walkers from Russia and Great Britain and then 6 other countries as well as 6 from the U.S.

The next Race was the 10K on July 12 in a park near Sac City College. The weather during the 10K was uncharacteristically cool (in the mid 60's) and this led to some fast times. The course consisted of 6+ loops on a relatively flat road. BJ came in 14 out of 24 and beat walkers from Australia, Russia, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Sweden and the U.S. Alan raced later (8:20) and walked side by side for 6 miles with the Russian who had trailed him in the 5K race on the 7th. Once again the Russian could not match Alan's sprint at the finish and that gave Alan his second Gold Medal at the meet. The U.S. had the 3rd and 4th fastest walkers so the U.S. won the team championship in the 75-79 division (and another Gold Medal). Alan attributes much of his success to the fact that one of his sons and his three grandchildren live in Sacramento and he has been there many times, including races. A bonus was that his son David and wife Roselle were there to cheer him on and take pictures.

So HRW followed up its success at the national level in June with success at the international level in July. Our next goal is to take on the Martians.

Results and pictures will be posted to the respective links soon.