The vice-chairman of a Dundee running club appealed to fitness enthusiasts from Fife, Angus, and Perthshire to help put racewalking back on the map in Scotland.
Double amputee Ronnie McIntosh is looking to push the sport back into the spotlight after starting a new group in October.
The former distance runner lost both his lower limbs to a gangrene infection in 2008 after battling kidney failure for over 20 years.
Frustrated at no longer being able to compete in half marathons and other road races, he focused on what he could do.
He wants anybody with an interest to join his group of four regulars.
“Down in England every athletics club has a racewalking section and it is high time we resurrected the sport in Scotland. There used to be a famous 22-mile Perth to Dundee racewalk that started in the high street and finished at the railway bridge in Invergowrie, but that stopped in the 1960s.
“Since then it has gradually tailed off and you now have to go down south if you want to compete. We need support from people in Angus, Fife and Perthshire to boost the numbers we already have in Dundee.”Hawkhill HarriersHe is vice-chairman of the Hawkhill Harriers and has its full support, and said racewalking may suit people who practice power-walking as the two techniques are similar.
“If I can do it with two artificial limbs then so can anybody else. It is a great form of exercise, and ideally I would like our membership to increase by a fair amount this coming year,” he said.
“It may be in some people’s new year’s resolution to get themselves fit again, and if they can walk or even power-walk then there is very little needed to move into racewalking.”
Racewalking developed as one of the original track and field events of the first meeting of the English Amateur Athletics Association in 1880.
The two rules that govern the Olympic discipline dictate that an athlete’s back toe cannot leave the ground until the heel of the front foot has touched, and the supporting leg must straighten from the point of contact with the ground and remain that way until the body passes over it.
In April last year Ronnie competed for the first time in 11 years at the Balmoral 5k Race, becoming the first double amputee to enter it.
The former Dundee City Council gardener completed the course in 49 minutes and 46 seconds using his prosthetic legs.