The UK Race-walking 20K Championships were held early last Sunday morning at the NSC Bowl on the Isle of Man, at the 800m course developed especially for race-walking. The event was a World Athletics Calendar event, so times and performance are acceptable as qualification standards for all elite Championships in 2025. The Senior Men and Senior Women 20k races commenced before the wind and rain that was forecast for the afternoon arrived, to give cool but ideal conditions for endurance racing.
As a World Calendar event, top international panel race-walking judges had been invited to ensure all International standards were met. Matthew Glennon had to pace and race within himself as the strictly judged event meant that he had to have a continuous focus on smooth rhythm and safe race-walking technique at all times. He achieved this with an excellent opening 10k of 44;40 and an all clear from the judges. With this reassurance, Matthew pushed on to complete the second 10k even faster (44:29), to give a final finishing time of 1:29:09, which is almost a minute inside the European Team Championship standard and just over 20 seconds inside the European U23 T&F ‘B’ qualification standards set by Athletics Ireland. Matthew was also delighted to be the second finisher overall, with only the British Champion just ahead of him.
