Robyn Stevens - US Racewalk

Barreling through adversity is what I’m long accustomed to.

One foot in front of the other.

2023 is the year of shedding toxic people from my life and leaving them behind while transforming through the trauma of being pushed around and disrespected by negligence, and USA race walk representatives continuously manipulating sport. I’m ready for 2023 to be over regardless of a few gold nuggets.

I qualified for Budapest23 as BEST USA race walker (18th in World) and also for Santiago23 Games as our Area and National BEST at race walk….but I was left off due to misconduct of sport manipulation carried out by USA “teammates” who have become consumed too much by a false sense of “victory” that they fail at authentic wins and integrity.

My training has been screwed with right and left by this ongoing misconduct as I navigate bouncing back from long-haul covid.

6km (3 laps) into this race on Dec 17th, I wanted to stop. I imagined coffee at a cute cafe and an Uber to someplace magical in Ireland….and never look back.

But I kept going.

I kept and I keep going despite stomach issues, the disappointment in my federation’s governing body and representatives for continually letting us all down with their complacency to misconduct (even awarding the misconduct), and despite making no sense to continue if is going to punish successes achieved with integrity and the spirit of pure heart (while USATF opt to celebrate sport cheats).

I continued with integrity…I kept walking even though that reprieve ☕️, I imagined, is more fulfilling….because if I stopped before 10km I would hate myself.

I kept going.

My 10km split is still fastest of female USA entrants. I was going to stop at that point but I kept going because that’s what I do: keep going even though others want me to fail so that they don’t have to work as hard at cheating. 😏

I pressed on regardless of feeling miserable the entire way because gratitude for my coach and for the wonderful hosts of Ireland are encouraging during these moments. Thank you.

5th OA, 1st 🥇 USA. SB