Here is a great story about Olympic racewalking in Beijing that appeared on NPR!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93773028

Apparently, the original course for the 50K and 20K racewalks was granite. The walkers complained, including American Philip Dunn. From the story:

Race walkers say they don’t get much respect for their sport to begin with, but this affront was too much.

“They would never do this to marathoners,” says American race walker Philip Dunn.

The cool thing is that officials listened, and a 4-millimeter thick, 4-meter wide gray synthetic surface in a 2 KM loop was put down on the granite.

I’m truly impressed that something was done to correct the problem! Good luck racewalkers!

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