JOHN MACHLAN

John MacLachlan has founded Racewalking International, Inc., (RWI) a nonprofit public benefit corporation, was created solely to help promote race walking for competition as well as fitness, throughout the Americas as well as the rest of the world.

Since its inception, RWI has sponsored a great many endeavors. They support existing programs financially and have also created new opportunities for race walkers of all abilities.

RWI serves to amplify the already successful program at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. While competitively successful for decades, the Parkside program was continually hampered by a lack of funds. Today, RWI’s support of the athletes’ travel budget and training program furthers Mike DeWitt’s hard work. But RWI’s colligate support doesn’t end there. Additionally, they financially support the race walking program at California University of Pennsylvania and assist some Olympic Team qualifiers.

RWI’s support is not solely monetary. They oversee and operate a Youth Development Program for race walkers, ages 9 to 19, throughout the U.S. In addition, they established a nationwide Collegiate Grand Prix in 2003, offering any collegiate/university student—whether or not involved in track and field or cross country—support to compete in race walking events.

They average 20 competitions per track season, principally in the Midwest and East Coast regions. Top Five point earners in various categories receive written recognition as well as a plaque outlining their achievement. Additionally, they get updates on happenings within the sport nationwide.

RWI web casts provide an exciting event that is new to our sport, with nearly instant results from major race walking competitions around the world. The web site (www.worldwidewalkers.net) also offers information and feature stories on current events pertaining to the race walking community.