Step-by-step strategy keeps Eastler on Olympic path

After representing the United States at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, Kevin Eastler thought about walking off into the competitive sunset.

He was enjoying his time away from intense training, opting instead to go skiing and play in a recreational hockey league.

But given that the Farmington native was just approaching the prime age for his sport – racewalking – he ultimately changed his mind, or at least put any retirement contemplations out of his mind.

“It was something I had floating around,” said Eastler, “but I never got to the point where I officially told USATF [U.S. Track and Field].”

Three years later Eastler is back on an Olympic path. The 29-year-old Mt. Blue High School graduate is well positioned to return to the Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, next year, as he achieved the Olympic “A” qualifying standard in June by winning the 20-kilometer race in a time of 1 hour, 26 minutes, 43 seconds.

Yet there are vagaries in the rules for qualifying for the team involving how many U.S. competitors achieve the “A” and “B” standards, so Eastler plans to take the guesswork out of the qualifying process through performance.

“I have to win the Olympic Trials,” he said. “That’s the way I’m looking at it.”

Pan American optimism

In the meantime, Eastler is dabbling with a new distance – the 50-kilometer racewalk – with an eye toward having a second Olympic option next year.

Eastler won his first race at the 31-mile distance in January in a time of 4 hours, 5 minutes and 44 seconds, and with it he claimed the 2007 U.S. 50K race walk championship.

His second 50k? That comes Saturday at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

“The Pan American Games are pretty high on the list of importance to me,” said Eastler, an Air Force captain assigned to the 566th Information Operations Squadron at Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado.

“It’s a pretty prestigious event, and it’s held once every four years like the Olympics. In the United States, the U.S. Olympic Committee thinks it’s pretty important, U.S. Track and Field thinks it’s very important, and for that reason I consider it very important.”

Eastler’s best and only time in the 50K doesn’t leave him seeded to medal among the 13 competitors who will take the early morning starting gun at Parque do Flamengo. Mexican Horacio Nava, with a qualifying time of 3:48:22, is the favorite.

But Eastler believes he learned a lot from his first 50K, and sees himself having a better chance to earn a top finish in that event than he would have if he had competed in the Pan Am 20K race last weekend.

“I’m taking a risk, because if I have a good race I have the potential to win or medal and place real well,” he said. “With the 20K, I could have a great race and still finish eighth.

“With the 50K the odds of something going wrong are higher, but if I have a great race the rewards are much better. It’s a risk, but an athlete doesn’t have the chance to place at a major event like this too many times in his career, and this is a chance for me.”

Step by step

Racewalking admittedly is a niche sport in American track and field, but one in which Eastler has carved a significant niche after being introduced to the sport through family ties.

His dad, Tom Eastler, is a geology professor at the University of Maine at Farmington who has been a player in the national racewalking scene since the 1980s, when he coached daughter Gretchen to national prominence in the sport.

Kevin Eastler began racewalking at age 9, literally following in his older sister’s footsteps.

Eastler quickly rose through the junior ranks to win numerous age-group championships and earned All-American status as a high school-age competitor.

After graduating from Mt. Blue in 1995, Eastler entered the Air Force Academy and went on to win the 10K racewalk at the 1996 U.S. Junior National Championships. Eastler soon backed off his racewalking regimen to focus on academics, but resumed his career during his senior year and finished fifth in the 20K at the U.S. outdoor championships.

His first assignment after graduating from the Air Force Academy in 1999 as a 2nd lieutenant was in the Air Force’s World Class Athlete Program, which allowed Eastler to train full time for the 2000 Olympics. He finished second at the Olympic Trials, but didn’t get to compete in the games because he did not achieve the “A” qualifying standard.

By 2003, he had won his first 20K national title, and a year later he finished third at the Olympic Trials and subsequently placed 21st at the Olympic Games in 1:25:20.

And now Eastler is approaching his peak racewalking years – step by step.

“It’s kind of like with a marathon runner, the late 20s and early 30s,” he said. “And with longer distances you can even ramp it up a little more, because at that point you’re not relying so much on raw speed and talent. It’s more racing smart and training smart that will determine where you stand.”