Who are the Australian Centurions?

We base our existence on the lead given by the British who have had a Centurions Club for many years. We were formed as a club in 1971 due to the hard work of 4 Victorian based people

• Tom Daintry who has been an Aust race walker for many years
• Brian Parkinson who was involved in racewalking as an official
• Fred Redman who had been a Centurion in England and came to Aust in the sixties.
• Len Matthews, another expatriate Brit who was also a British Centurion.

These people put up the initial money to have the medallions and certificates made and promoted the idea of an annual 100 mile/24 hour race. Thus the number of Centurions gradually rose until we had 20 by 1980. At this time, we moved in other directions and the club simply ceased to function as an active entity. We reformed in 1994 and since then we have been making up for lost time and have done the following

• affiliation with the Aust Federation of Race Walking Clubs
• the setting up of an honour board for Australian Centurions
• the striking of a new medallion die
• helping run annual Centurions Events
• the regular issue of newsletters to all members
• the acceptance of a number of new Australian Centurions into our ranks
• the recognition of ultra-distance best on record performances
• registering of our own home page that you are now reading.

With each of these initiatives, we have strengthened our position within the racewalking community in Australia and now can proudly regard ourselves as the ultra-distance arm of Australian racewalking.

Here are some of our Centurions. Press here to find our more about the details.

Let me give you some details of how the club functions and its aims. This may be summarised as follows

1. All persons who walk 100 miles within 24 hours in Australia automatically become life members of the club.
2. The club exists solely to honour the performance of centurions. It does not run its own events. It is not a competitive club. Its sole aim is to foster long distance walking in Australia.
3. It has no annual fees or subsidies. It relies on the willingness of Centurions to make occasional donations as required on an as-needs basis. Our only ongoing costs are the annual affiliation fees with the Aust Federation of Race Walking clubs, our annual Government Affiliation fee, the ongoing cost of newsletters and any costs involved in helping host the annual Centurions walking event.
4. We hold no regular meetings apart from an Annual General Meeting which we try to hold in conjunction with a 24 hour walk if there is one on in the particular calendar year.