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Friday, September 22
Winner 'runs' three separate times
Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia -- Walk, don't run.
The strict regimen of track walkers leaves little margin for
error as athletes carefully put one foot after the other, toe
followed by heel, followed by toe. When Bernardo Segura stepped
over that line, it cost the Mexican walker the first track gold
medal of the Sydney Olympics.
|  | | Sometimes it's a fine line staying within the rules of race-walking.
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Segura, world record holder in the 20-kilometer walk, was caught
losing contact with the ground three times in the final 20 minutes of the event Friday. That amounts to running, something walkers
just don't do.
That sent the gold medal over to Robert Korzeniowski of Poland.
Noe Fernandez of Mexico, who had celebrated with Segura wrapped in
a Mexican flag while his countryman donned a sombrero, was moved up
to silver. The bronze went to Vladimir Andreyev of Russia.
Segura denied any wrongdoing.
"They can't give me back a medal I never lost. I won clearly.
They can't disqualify me," he said.
"It would be unfair because I ran a clean race."
A Mexican team appeal was rejected by Olympic officials.
Segura, Korzeniowski and Hernandez entered Olympic Stadium side
by side after the walk, which took them first out of the stadium
and through the streets of Sydney. Then Segura, the Pan American
Games champion and World Cup winner last year, who posted a world
best time of 1:17.25 for the event in 1994, pulled a few strides in
front in the final 100 meters.
Timed in 1 hour, 18 minutes, 58 seconds, his final margin was
one second over Korzeniowski. Then came Hernandez, who was stunned
by the decision of the judges.
"I can't believe Segura was disqualified," he said. "It's
nonsense. He won the race."
Korzeniowski said he didn't see Segura run.
"I don't watch my partner," he said. "It's the rule of the
judge. I only look my way."
Korzeniowski said the same thing had happened to him in 1992 at
the Olympics in Barcelona. "I was walking I believed a clean
race," he said. "I concentrate only on my race."
Korzeniowski won the Olympic 50-kilometer race in 1996 and plans
to attempt the 50k double here. No runner has ever won both walking
races in the same Olympics.
Segura, the bronze medalist in the 20K at Atlanta, said in a
1996 interview with the Mexican newspaper Cronica that the style of
race walking has changed in recent years as competitors sped up.
"The only thing that has not been changed is the rule," he
said. "So if the judges stick 100 percent to what's on paper, we
would all be disqualified."
On Friday, he was the only one.
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