Taking the lead were Olga Kaniskina, an Olympic gold medalist and three-time world champion, and Elena Lashmanova, an upstart talent in the world of female race walking who defeated Ms. Kaniskina at the Olympics in London.
Behind them came a crowd of boys and girls, all rotating their hips, cocking their knees and gliding along at a fast jogging pace — though, of course, never technically breaking into a run.
This trick is the strange allure of race walking, this city’s favorite and best sport — particularly among women.
It is telling of Russia’s approach to sports that when the Friday night lights come on in Saransk, the town’s heroes are not muscle-bound football players, or even dashing soccer aces, but demure and willowy young women who walk funny.
And these women have this town’s unwavering respect: they have shown a fearsome ability to cream any challengers, even the Chinese, the rising world power in men’s race walking.
Four of the five top-ranked female distance race walkers in the world are from Saransk, an otherwise unremarkable city of about 310,000 people 320 miles southeast of Moscow.
In previous years, before the Chinese surged, 9 of the top 12 female 20-kilometer race walkers were from here.
Today in International Association of Athletics Federation rankings, Russian and Chinese women hold the top 11 spots, followed by Marina Ortiz of Guatemala. And at the group’s World Championships, opening in Moscow on Saturday, Russia is expecting big things in women’s race walking.
Russian girls dream of growing up to figure skate or dance in the Bolshoi, but in Saransk, they want to be race walkers. On a recent afternoon, Alesa Komarova, a gangly 14-year-old, laced up her Adidases and limbered up by walking — not running — in place. “I really like to race walk,” she said. “We look at the Olympic champions and want to be like them.”
She watches the races on television, she said, and analyzes technique and discusses meets with friends at school. “It’s all very interesting,” she said. “You need to keep your legs straight, and it is very difficult.”
At race walking events in the city, which occur as often as once a week in the fall, residents line the streets. “They yell and cheer and tell us to walk faster,” said one walker, Vladilena Odushkina, 17.
Galina K. Vaskina, a waitress at the Big Ben sports bar, said that one night last winter, “A group of men were sitting here and drinking beer and they said, ‘Hey, can you put on female race walking?’ and so I did.”
Saransk might seem to exist in some through-the-looking-glass world where clocks run backward and a women’s team practicing an obscure sport has the city’s full attention. In fact, though, it sits firmly within the context of Russian sports politics.
Russia has been preparing to host a series of high-profile sporting events, starting with the World Athletics Championships and followed by the Olympics next winter, by reviving the modus operandi of the once-vaunted Soviet sports machine. That approach focused on national prestige and Olympic medal counts, not popularity of sport.
At the World Championships, Russian sportswriters say, do not look for a Russian to get close to Usain Bolt in the 100-meter sprint, for example. High profile is not Russia’s strategy.
Instead, says the newspaper Kommersant’s Alexey Dospekhov, Russia is expecting a harvest of medals in women’s hurdles, women’s pole vault and men’s and women’s race walking. “Our women are always the favorite,” he said.
As they are in Saransk, where Russia’s methodical approach to medal counts is on full display.
“People criticize us by saying, ‘Well, yes, you win all the time, but that’s because nobody else in the world cares about this sport,’ ” said Mikhail M. Nikishin, a spokesman for the regional government. “And we say ‘Fine, but just try to catch these girls if you can.’ ”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/09/world/europe/walking-funny-and-fast-puts-russia-city-on-map.html?pagewanted=all