Racewalking requires you to keep one foot in contact with the ground at all times (otherwise you'd be running) and ends up looking really dorky, but the top racewalkers really are amazing athletes. Denis Nizhegorodov looks like a racewalker (dorky!) but is a real stud, he just set a world record for walking 50K (31 miles) in 3:34.
That's more than 30 minutes faster than I could run 50K in ideal circumstances. And the fastest I can walk is 12 minute miles.
The other problem with racewalking (besides the dork factor) is that you need judges to make sure you follow the rules for proper legal form and the fact of the matter is, practically no one actually does so for the whole race. Some get caught and some don't.
Follow any of them around with a movie camera for the whole course and you're bound to get lots of pictures like this one, of third place finisher Alex Schwazer (with both feet simultaneously off the ground).
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