As a member of the Canadian World Junior Athletics Team, Ben Thorne participated in his second major world Championship of the year. After his performance at the World Cup of Race Walking in Saransk, Russia qualified him for the World Junior event Ben went on to post a world best time at the Canadian Championships. Ben had the podium in site at the World Juniors.
The race started well for Ben who was determined to lead the field to a fast time rather than have the 10,000 metre event on the track become a cat-and-mouse game with a sprint finish in the last 600 metres. Ben was able to lead for a large part of the first 5,000 metres of the race, however in order to do this Ben needed to put in several sprint efforts to keep ahead of a very determined Japanese walker. The abrupt changes of pace were Ben’s undoing as he picked up several calls from judges who determined that in order to pick up that much speed over such a short distance Ben was violating the contact rule. Just after the 5,000 metre mark Ben was disqualified and was forced to retire from the race.
Being disqualified at a major event is devastating. However, much to his credit Ben has recovered his desire to compete and will be one of the featured athletes at the US/Canada Junior Dual Race Walk event being held in Toronto in the middle of August. It’s certain that we can expect another amazing performance from the young man.
Racewalk West 