New documentary and passion project aims to showcase the ups and downs – as well as the skill – of being a race walker.
It didn’t begin with a commissioning editor or a funding pitch,” says Tom Ruddock. “It began with my dad. Len Ruddock – Ilford AC member, former training partner of European Games bronze medallist Roger Mills – has lived and breathed race walking for as long as I can remember.”
The filmmaker is discussing his new project, The Art of Walking, a documentary that brings the triumphs, tribulations and toil of two-time Olympian Callum Wilkinson into sharp focus. It just recently premiered on Athletics Weekly’s YouTube channel – a fitting collaboration for a few reasons.
“As a teenager, having a dad who race walked wasn’t exactly a social asset,” continues Ruddock. “But what stayed with me was the discipline. The quiet stubbornness. The kind of commitment only niche sports seem to demand.
“My dad has always been one of my biggest supporters and I’d long wanted to collaborate on something meaningful with him so when he launched his YouTube channel, Race Walking Extra, and mentioned he had a connection to Callum, it felt like an opportunity.
“Then he sent me an AW interview with Callum, in which he described race walking as an art form. He spoke candidly about the effort it took to reach Paris 2024. I watched the clip of him qualifying for the Olympics at the British Championships. The emotion. The relief. The years condensed into a single moment. I knew immediately: this was a film.”
That national record-breaking performance from Manchester almost two summers ago features in the film, as does Wilkinson’s release of pure emotion at the finish line that becomes all the more understandable the more you learn about the circumstances in which it was achieved.
That 10,000m race had been set up with the express purpose of giving the now 28-year-old what he needed to qualify for Paris. “It was the last day of the qualifying window, the last chance,” says Wilkinson.
He seized it and his lengthy injury struggles, the surgeries, the monotonous hours of rehab exercises, became a thing of the past. Given the sport’s ongoing battle to keep its place at the athletics table, it takes great character simply to be a racewalker but even more so to compete at the highest level.
“Once you qualify for the Olympics, and you can call yourself an Olympian, you have that for life,” says Wilkinson. “No-one can take that away from you. To do that a second time, when you could have left the sport or had it taken away from you – and you’ve managed to keep that childhood dream alive and be back in a place where you could really enjoy it – my journey to the [Paris] Olympics was a success before I even stepped on the start line.
“As much as I came 10th in Tokyo [in 2021] and 16th in Paris, it was almost certainly a better performance to get there and get back. It meant so much more to me than I ever thought was possible.”
The emotional challenges of being a competitor, and the comeback story, were only part of what Ruddock wanted to capture with the film, however. He had other things in mind, too. Within minutes of first speaking with Wilkinson about the project, he says: “I felt the clarity, the resilience, the depth behind the performance.”
Soon he, producing partner Shelley Ruddock, cinematographer Yannick Hausler and Len Ruddock were on a plane to Wilkinson’s training base in Cork for a 48-hour filming shoot.
“The aim was simple – treat race walking as art,” says Tom. “Not just document it, frame it. Capture the rhythm of the hips, the precision of foot contact, the economy of movement. We shot sections on 16mm film to give the training sequences texture and grit.
“There’s something about film grain that honours repetition and labour. It felt right for a discipline built on both. What we hadn’t fully prepared for was the speed.
“I’ve filmed runners before – Yannick and I had just come off a television drama involving full chase sequences – but filming an Olympic race walker is different. The cadence is relentless. Even at ‘steady pace’, Callum was moving faster than expected and we were a four-person crew.
“At one point, at the university track, we found a trolley and that led to me sprinting while pushing Yannick, camera in hand, trying to keep level with Callum’s stride. Later, in a gym car park, we shot from the back of a rental car. Unorthodox solutions but necessary ones. If the audience feels the speed, we’ve
done our job.”
Wilkinson is hoping that that speed can carry him all the way to another Olympics, where he intends to be a medal contender. That goal has not been made any easier by the fact that he is no longer on World Class Programme funding.
“Race walkers train like marathoners, but without the same infrastructure or sponsorship security,” says Ruddock. “Callum’s story is one of persistence not just physically, but financially and emotionally. And it’s ongoing.
“As he builds toward LA 2028, our hope is that this short documentary is just the beginning to a full-length feature film – that it helps raise support to follow the next chapter, and shines a light on a sport that thrives globally yet fights for visibility in the UK.
“Race walking is often misunderstood, but when you look closely – really look – there’s beauty in the constraint. Precision in the rules. Art in the repetition. As Callum says at the start of the film: ‘The greatest sophistication is simplicity and race walking is an incredibly simple thing’.”
There is also that very personal connection for the man leading the project.
“My dad has shelves lined with five decades of Athletics Weekly magazines, so to premiere this film here – in the pages and on the platform he’s respected for so long – feels like a full circle moment,” says Ruddock. “From Ilford AC to the Olympics. From father to son. That’s where The Art of Walking truly began.”
The Art of Walking by View 35 Films is out now. Watch it here