Three out of the four UW-Parkside walkers who competed on the "world stage" earned career bests at the World Cup of Race Walking held this past weekend in Russia.
Miranda Melville, a UW-Parkside freshman (Rush, NY) was the first USA finisher in the Junior (19 and under) 10km event. Melville placed 43rd in the field of 56 starters and earned a time of 53:25, which was an improvement of 10 seconds on her previous best set in early April at the Team USA qualifying event held in Long Island, NY.
Current Parkside Athletic Club and UW-P graduates Ben Shorey and Stephen Quirke earned career best marks in the men's 50km event. Shorey placed 56th and Quirke 58th out of the starting field of 101 walkers. Shorey finished in a time of 4:18:46, which improved on his best by over 8 minutes. Quirke finished with a time of 4:22:16, which was a 5-minute improvement on his previous best. Each walker earned their best marks at the U.S. olympic trials held in Miami in February.
Parkside AC member, Sam Cohen, who has been working through an injury that has limited the amount of technique training she has been able to accomplish, was disqualified when she recieved three red cards from the judging panel for failure to remain within the set technique rules.
The host nation of Russia dominated the medal count. There was a total of 55 nations represented in the five races. The Russians won 10 of the 15 individual medals, including sweeping the top three spots in the Junior Women's event. They also swept all five team titles (each race is scored in cross country fashion, with points earned for the Top three finishers on a team in senior competition and the top two finishers in junior competition). There was one world record recorded in the men's 50km event along with three other World Cup event records.
Team USA was not able to get out of the bottom 33 percent in the team scoring in any of the events. Melville paced the Junior Women to a 17th place team finish out of the 20 teams that were entered. Shorey and Quirke were the second and third U.S. finishers in the Men's 50km. The USA team finished 10th out of 15 teams that were entered. The Senior Women's team, which Cohen was not able to help, placed 15th out of 18 teams entered.
UW-Parkside track coach and race walking coordinator Mike DeWitt commented on the performances of the Parkside group in Russia: "Our group did an outstanding job at World Cup. Any time you can improve on your best on the biggest stage it says a lot about how well you were able to follow through on what your goals were. Each of the four athletes did an exceptional job of working their individual race plan. I was able to keep in pretty good contact through texting, even though the races were held between 11 p.m. and 4 p.m. central time. This group, along with all of the walkers of the past 25-plus years, understand that race walking around the world is at a different priority than it is in the U.S. It is a very high priority around UW-P, but at the world level, individual olympic events mean much more than they do around the USA, along with that comes a stronger and deeper athletic talent pool. A similar focus in the U.S., would make UW-P to be one of several solid programs, which would make a much bigger impact on the world level. This group will always remember their Russian trip, in the same way I recall my International events as an athlete."