Contact: Jill M. Geer
USATF Director of Communications
USA Track & Field
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USATF News & Notes
Volume 4, Number 2 January 6, 2003
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In this edition:
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- Race walking goes prime time on FOX
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Clausen, race walking featured on FOX sitcom
The sport of race walking – and several U.S. race walkers – made their
prime-time sit-com debuts Sunday night in FOX’s broadcast of its hit series,
“Malcolm in the Middle.”
Thanks to the assistance of technical advisor Curt Clausen, Team USA’s 1999
World Championships bronze medalist in the 50-kilometer race walk, Sunday’s
episode of “Malcolm” had as its main storyline Malcolm’s father, Hal, taking
up the sport.
The show’s writers wanted to incorporate race walking into the show and
called Clausen in the fall at the ARCO Olympic Training Center, where he
lives and trains. Clausen read the script and made suggestions for how to
incorporate information on race walking rules and technique into the show.
“I read the script, and it was hilarious,” Clausen said. “It didn’t make fun
of race walking as much as it could have. I suggested some things on the
script. It was a lot of fun.”
Clausen headed to Los Angeles, where he taught four key actors in the sitcom
how to race walk, and he appeared in the several scenes. Teaching the actors
to race walk in a manner befitting a sitcom proved an integral part of the
process.
“The director said it had to look funnier, so we exaggerated the motions a
little more,” Clausen said. “It actually looked pretty good on film.”
The episode chronicled the race walking obsession of Hal (Bryan Cranston)
after he sees a group of walkers – including Clausen and fellow Team USA
athletes Susan Armenta, Philip Dunn and Sean Albert – striding through a
park. So inspired does Hal become that he immerses himself in walking,
studying tapes to perfect his technique and speed. He even dreams one night
of being a secret weapon for the Army during World War I, race-walking
important documents across enemy lines.
Hal is foiled in his attempt to overtake the fastest walker in the group, a
man clad in a full-body blue spandex suit and aerodynamic helmet, until he
realizes by studying a videotape that his nemesis has both feet off the
ground – the deadliest of sins in race walking. Haranguing the man with the
insult of “Jogger!!” while wearing his own red-flamed bodysuit and helmet,
Hal keeps pace with him until, in a moment vaguely reminiscent of Sergei
Eisenstein’s 1925 classic film “Battleship Potemkin,” the two men barrel
toward a baby carriage and fall to the ground rather than injure the baby.
“Malcom in the Middle” is part of FOX’s highly rated Sunday night comedy
lineup that includes “The Simpsons” and “King of the Hill.”
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