Manx Harrier, Steve Taylor is heading out to Rio to be part of the judging team for the Olympic race walks.
Steve is a member of the select group of international technical officials and will be tasked with judging the three race walking events taking place on Friday, August 12 (men’s 20km) and the following Friday, August 19 (men’s 50km and women’s 20km).
A former Commonwealth Games and Great Britain athlete, Steve took up judging when he stopped competing and is now unquestionably the top-ranked athletics official in the island. He has been on the IAAF level 3 judging panel for the past 10 years. To achieve this level of recognition, judges have to regularly sit IAAF exams and their consistency in judging top races around the world is monitored and assessed.
So far in 2016, Steve has traveled to Lithuania, China, Italy, Slovakia and South Korea, countries that required a judge of his standing to bring credence to their events. After only six years at the top level, he was appointed chief judge for the 2012 London Olympics. Since then he has repeated the role of chief at the 2013 World Cup in Moscow and the 2014 European Race Walking Championships in Zurich.
He has recently been appointed chief judge for the 2017 World Athletics Championships to be held in London next summer.
Manx Harriers would like to congratulate Steve on his success in the field of race walking judging were he has reached the highest of honours. We wish Steve all the best for a successful Olympics 2016.