Australian Centurions
Race the World
Australian Centurions
The Australian Centurions, established in 1971, are a very active group consisting of Australian walkers as well as many British, Dutch, Belgian and US Centurions and base their existence on the lead given by the British who have had a Centurions Club for many years.
The number of Centurions gradually rose until there were 20 Australian Centurions by 1980. But the club ceased to function as an active entity.
Reformed in 1994 and has been making up for lost time ...
- affiliation with the Aust Federation of Race Walking Clubs
- the setting up of an honour board for Australian Centurions
- the striking of a new medallion die
- helping run annual Centurions Events
- the regular issue of newsletters to all members
- the acceptance of a number of new Australian Centurions into the ranks
- the recognition of ultra-distance best on record performances
With each of these initiatives, the Australian Centurions have strengthened their position within the racewalking community in Australia and now can proudly regard themselves as the ultra-distance arm of Australian racewalking.
Tim Erickson is the Secretary and he produces a regular and informative newsletter Footnotes full of reports and photos from races at home and further afield - read the latest edition of the Centurions Footnotes
Tim recently published information on what information race organisers do and expect from potential participants in a 24 hour race. Primarily aimed at the Australian Centurions race in Coburg, but overall a very good check list on what race organisers do and expect from competitors in a 24 hour race.
09-10 April 2022
The Australian Centurions saw five centurion performances at the annual Coburg 24 Hour Carnival over the weekend and two new Australian Centurions, with Remy Van Den Brand (C83) and Andrew Titley (C840 joining the ranks.
The 5 centurion walks were:
Remy Van Den Brand (NED) C83 21:04:52
Justin Scholz (AUS) C61 21:17:26
David Billett (AUS) C50 22:33:38
Andrew Titley (IOM) C84 22:48:59
Sharon Scholz (AUS) C63 22:53:06
Full results of the walks
Latest list of Australian Centurions (Thanks to Ruud Lien for some quick work!)
Previous races
17-18 April 2021
2021 Coburg 24 Hour Carnival and Australian Centurions Qualifying 24 Hour Harold Stevens Athletics Track, Coburg, Victoria.
Tim Erickson reports:
The Coburg 24 Hour Carnival has co-hosted the annual Australian Centurions 24 Hour qualifying race since 2002 and has provided the venue for 38 new members to be added to our club (C27, C36-C48, C50, C52-60, C67-80).
This year was no exception, with Melbourne based racewalker Pramesh Prasad adding his name to our membership list and earning Australian Centurions badge C81 with a 100 mile walk time of 20:43:42. Pramesh’s only other ultra distance experience was at Coburg in 2019 when he won the 6 Hour walk with a very strong distance of 56.512 km. Two years later, he has stepped up to the 24 Hour challenge and produced the goods.
To add further icing to the cake, Victorian based ultra walker/runner Justin Scholz (C61) also covered 100 miles within 24 hours with a time of 21:32:28. It was Justin’s 15th centurion walk performance and came only 3 weeks after his centurion walk in Canberra. Now that’s a pretty impressive stat.
past race results
People
formed as a club in 1971 due to the hard work of 4 Victorian based people
- Tom Daintry who has been an Australian race walker for many years
- Brian Parkinson who was involved in racewalking as an official
- Fred Redman who had been a Centurion in England and came to Australia in the sixties.
- Len Matthews, another expatriate Brit who was also a British Centurion.
These people put up the initial money to have the medallions and certificates made and promoted the idea of an annual 100 mile/24 hour race. Thus the number of Centurions gradually rose until there were 20 by 1980. At this time, we moved in other directions and the club simply ceased to function as an active entity. Reformed in 1994 and have been making up for lost time and have done the following
- affiliation with the Aust Federation of Race Walking Clubs
- the setting up of an honour board for Australian Centurions
- the striking of a new medallion die
- helping run annual Centurions Events
- the regular issue of newsletters to all members
- the acceptance of a number of new Australian Centurions into our ranks
- the recognition of ultra-distance best on record performances
- registering of our own home page that you are now reading.
With each of these initiatives, we have strengthened our position within the racewalking community in Australia and now can proudly regard ourselves as the ultra-distance arm of Australian racewalking.
There are now 84 Australian Centurions with a growing list of overseas walkers:
10 Netherlands
8 Great Britain
4 Belgium
3 New Zealand
3 USA
1 Denmark
1 Germany
1 Nigeria
Jack Debert retrospectively awarded badge C1A
In the October 2019 Issue of Centurion Footnotes, Tim Erickson reported on a possible newly unearthed Australian Centurion performance, dating from 1937. The Executive has discussed this in some depth and has accepted the performance and awarded Australian Centurion membership to NSW walker Jack Debert. Overall, that takes our Australian Centurion count to 81.
Badge 1 remains with Gordon Smith for his winning performance in the same race. Badge number 2 has already been allocated to Jack Webber for his 1971 walk in Adelaide.
Accordingly, a new badge number of 1A has been inserted for Jack’s performance.
Australian walkers who are also multi Centurions:
African Centurions - Sharon Scholz and Justin Scholz
British Centurions - Geoff Hains; Carol Baird; John Kilmartin; Sharon Scholz and Justin Scholz
Continental Centurions - Geoff Hain; John Kilmartin; Sharon Scholz and Justin Scholz
Malaysian Centurions - Carol Baird. Peter Bennett
New Zealand Centurions - Carol Baird; Geoff Hain; Sharon Scholz and Justin Scholz