Tim Berrett and Martin Rush as they are now (thanks to Steve Taylor)

In 1983 the English Schools Race Walking Championships were held in Douglas and the event was filmed using the Sports Council’s VHS camera. I copied the tape onto Betamax and when my Betamax recorder expired had the tape copied back to VHS.  Various copies of the tape were made but then the original was lost for more than 10 years. Finally the tape was recovered about a year ago and I have started to make a series of clips for this site.

It was the first time I had been asked to commentate and interview athletes and 28 years later I wish I could ask the questions again! But some become so relevant with the passing of time. Here we have the first and second walkers from the senior boys 10km in which Martin Rush ( who later represented Great Britain in the 1992 Olympics) won in 42.38 and second placed Tim Berrett are asked if they hope to represent Great Britain. Tim emigrated to Canada and set a world record by competing in 9 world championships, has personal best for 50km of 3.50.24 and competed in 5 Olympic Games.. Martin returned to the Isle of Man many times (including a guest appearance in the Manx Airlines half marathon) and became the fourth fastest British walker (behind McCombie, Maddocks and Barry) at the NSC in 1992.  

Note the lack of a clubhouse behind the two 18 year old walkers let alone the National Sports Centre. Doing the filming was the mayor of Douglas, Richie McNicholl. There were atrocious weather conditions and the camera packed in several times due to the rain water and so sadly the senior boys race was not filmed. But several others were and they will be reproduced here as part of this series which will also include further interviews. (Murray Lambden 9 December 2011)