50 years of Ohio Racewalker now searchable on mastershistory.org
The year after he took 17th in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, race walker Jack Mortland started a modest newsletter. Called Ohio Race Walker, the publication was self-indulgent from the get-go. And self-deprecating. (“Our purpose is mainly to present information and news on the sport (and to keep our own names in print) and we are not planning any crusading-type journalism,” Jack wrote.) The first issue named Jack Mortland Ohio Walker of the Month for February “by an unbiased selection committee (his mother, father, sister and wife).” Along with walk rival Jack “Doc” Blackburn, Mortland was its main editor for decades. It ceased print publication in September 2014. First posted on racewalk.com, the entire 593-issue series has now been added to mastershistory.org — with a crucial difference. The original versions were scanned as images. But the issues on mastershistory.org are text-searchable. That means search engines like Google will eventually have an index of all the results, world rankings and masters mentions in this seminal publication. Over time it became an authority on the sport worldwide. We’re honored to share this, thanks to racewalk.com founder Jeff Salvage and a grant from the USA Masters T&F Committee.
Six decades, 593 issues, of ORW are searchable on mastershistory.org.
4 Responses
As Ken has mentioned in a past post … it includes stats and stories of Masters and Open.
The history of racewalking in USA .
Sincerest gratitude to Jack Mortland, Jeff Salvage and others for their timeless efforts to make this happen.
Way to help make history and leave a lasting impact on our event and the sport of Track and Field.
Is there somewhere else a good historical source for 12 earlier years (1953-1964)? which is part of Seattle Olympic Club’s race walk activity.
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