how well could claudia lane do in the racewalk?

In response to "Running got her there", I can't imagine a less well informed comment. The hardest part about an Ivy League school is obtaining admission. Now, being at the top of the class at a Dartmouth is very difficult given the overall competitiveness of the student body, but getting through with a degree? Frankly, it is much easier than than a flagship state school.

I went to a school ranked squarely even with Dartmouth, and likely didn't get much of advantage in terms of admission because my grades and scores were above the median, likely above the 75 percentile. I did no do much work there (not a good thing, but I had no parents or guidance or maturity, take your pick), and in that respect I was fortunate because if I attended my state flagship (Illinois) I would have had to work much harder to obtain a degree - the basic requirements were significantly more stringent at U of I than at the school I attended.

By the way, I did send two daughters to the Ivy League, and they would defend everything I just said.

As to Claudia Lane, I wish her well and she is very fortunate to attend a fine school without athletic scholarship pressure and I hope she is happy in her endeavors.

Perhaps you should re-state your position?

very old pedestrian wrote:

You say everybody has a "float phase". If you mean, everybody has a "flight phase" when they walk normally- that is not correct. NOBODY has a flight phase when they are walking around. In other words, when people walk, they maintain continuous contact with the ground.

You couldn't be more wrong. No, I did NOT mean "flight phase," I precisely meant "float phase," the period of time when a walker or runner has both feet off the ground. Except for the halt and the lame (and the very old), everyone has a float phase when they walk, however brief, even if they aren't aware of it. Exceptions mentioned above excluded, hardly anyone maintains continuous contact with the ground when walking, even when doing it slowly. And the faster one walks, the longer and more pronounced the float phase will be. If you think otherwise, you have an extremely poor understanding of biomechanics and kinesiology. Maintaining continuous ground contact to stay within the rules of racewalking is something that must be done consciously, because that isn't a natural way of locomotion, and in fact, due to that very unnaturalness, and the difficulties of judging racewalking with the naked eye, most racewalkers are breaking the rules constantly, intentionally or otherwise.

As @track chick mentioned above, racewalking has become a farce because it's not a question of who is actually adhering to the rules so much as it who can make it look like they are.

You are correct that the admissions process is very difficult. Had someone had the audacity a year ago to insinuate that she would be anything other than a national class performer in the NCAA, you would have declared them to be not credible. The girl is average academically and will be average athletically. This will make for a difficult combination. She will finish out her college education at Chico State.