Originally, membership was to be limited to 100, but this was rescinded in October 1930 as teh numbers of members swelled well past the initial estimates. With this year's new members, the grand total now stands at an amazing 1062 members.
At the inaugural meeting in 1911, James Edwin Fowler-Dixon was retrospectively accorded the number "1" for his performance in 1877 and was elected the first President and held that position until his death in 1943. The position has been deemed to be 'for life' and there have only 9 Presidents in the entire history of the club. Carl Lawton (C750) is the current President.
The London to Brighton and back (19 Centurion races) and the Leicester to Skegness (11 Centurion races) races were popular yearly qualifying opportunities until eventually motor traffic forced walkers off the roads. In recent years the annual event has been held at venues in London, Colchester, Newmarket and on the Isle of Man.
In most years, the qualifying event is held as a road event but approximately every 10 years, it is held as a track based event so that walkers can test themselves against the official British records.
The official Centurions website is found at http://www.centurions1911.org.uk/index.html
In 2011, the British Centurions will celebrate 100 years of existence and there are sure to be big celebrations on offer.
The Dutch Centurion Association (C.V.N.) is the second oldest Centurion club in the world.
After L. Schol, Centurion 291, had become the first Dutch Centurion, more and more Dutch men and women travelled to Great Britain to obtain the Centurion title. Besides the British Centurions, the largest group of foreign Centurions are the Dutch. To stay in contact with each other and to represent the Dutch contingent of Centurions, the Dutch Centurion Association (Centurion Vereniging Nederland, C.V.N.) was founded on the 12th of February 1966. The C.V.N. spreads news about past and future races amongst its members, organizes trips to the British races and has a Centurionreunion each year.
In other words, C.V.N. is a brotherhood of all the Continental European based walkers who are members of the Centurion League based in England. That means that they do not hold any event of their own - it is a club that exists timply to honour those Dutch walkers who qualify at British Centurions. It has over 300 members.
The Dutch Centurions have their own website at http://members.lycos.nl/DutchCenturions/ and they put out their own regular club magazine.
There are currently 359 Continental Centurions, who are mainly Dutch, but there are also some German, Belgian, British and Danish Continental Centurions. In their 2007 event, held in May in Weert, 20 walkers reached the 100 mile standard and, of the 20, 10 were new members.
The Centurions Club of America was formed by the Columbia Track Club in 1967 and held an annual 24 hour walking event each year for nearly 20 years. Nearly all the early events were held in Colombia in Missouri but as time went on, other venues were used in places such as San diago. Their last event was held in 1983 and the books stood closed at 48 Centurions.
It was with great excitement that the Centurion world greeted the news that this group had reformed in 2000 and, since then, a number of centurion events have been held. Ulli Kamm and his wife Traudl have been the mainstay of the Club since it reformed and his website remains the main source of information about future events. See http://www.ultrawalk.com/
In 2000, Ulli organised the qualifying opportunity in his home town of Golden in Colorado and 9 new members overcame snow and freezing conditions to reach the 100m mile mark and qualify as American Centurions. Since then, further new members have been added and the number now stands at 63. The latest new member was Dorit Attias who qualified in Grapevine in Texas in November 2006.
Since 2003, the yearly qualifying event has been held in conjunction with the Ultracentric 24/48 Hour Carnival and the event now advertises that those who complete 100 miles within 24 Hours will be awarded the Ultracentric (UC) Centurion Award. The 2007 event will be held on November 17tin in Grapevine in Texas.
The Australian Centurions Club was formed in 1971 and has a current membership of 53. The club holds one qualifying event each year and it is always in April at Coburg, a Melbourne suburb in the State of Victoria. The event is always track based and competitors must face the challenge of completing just over 402 laps of the 400m track to achieve the elusive 100 mile mark.
The club also grants centurion membership to walkers who achieve the 100 mile standard in either the Gold Coast 24/48 Hour event in August or the Sri Chinmoy Australian 24 Hour event in Adelaide in September. This is different to the other Centurion clubs who only accept performances done in their specific event.
The
club has extended
its mandate from the original 100 mile concept and now seeks to
encourage ultra walking throughout Australia. As such, it recognises
and oversees performances from 6 Hours to 6 Days and maintains and
administers Open and Age Group Records over a wide variety of Distances
and Times.
The club also puts out a regular ultra walking
newsletter and maintains a comprehensive website at http://home.vicnet.net.au/~austcent/index.html
The New Zealand Centurions Club was formed in November 1998 and was enthusiastically run by Dudley Harris until his retirement from club administration. Currently the club has 14 members.
Recently Philip Sharp has sought to re-invigorate the club and now maintains a comprehensive website at http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/~sharp/nzcenturions/
As well as recognising centurion status, the New
Zealand Centurions recognise the achievement of walking 100 kilometres
in 14 hours 30 minutes.
Like many other national bodies in New Zealand representing minor
sports, they are currently looking at ways to attract more people to
centurionism and ultrawalking. One possibly being considered is to
recognise other achievements such as walking 80 kilometres in 12 hours
or 40 kilometres in six hours, two achievements recognised by the
Australian Centurions.
They do not usually organise their own events. Instead, members enter
events organised by other organisations, such as by the New Zealand
Sri-Chinmoy marathon team.
Unfortunately the 2007 qualifier, to be held in conjunction with the New Zealand Self-Transcendence 24 Hour Track race in Auckland in October, was cancelled at short notice by the Sri Chinmoy group when their founder Guru Sri Chinmoy died suddenly.
In the 2005 event, 12 finishers meant a further 12 centurion numbers were added to the list with the 12 representing CZE, ESP, BEL, FRA, RUS, GER, NED, AUS, MAS and BLR. No race can claim to be more world-inclusive than the Malaysian event.
While the first 3 events had been held in the relative coolness of the Genting Highlands resort, their most recent event, in August 2007, was staged in central Kuala Lumpur. The tough conditions ensured that only 5 walkers reached the 100 mile target. Of the 5 successful walkers, 3 were Malaysian, indicating the increasing standard of local ultra walking within that country. The other interesting note is that Kenyan women finished 1st, 2nd and 4th in the women's division, definitely another first in the world of ultra walking. Is this perhaps the first sign of an African interest in the ultra running and ultra walking disciplines.
Overall, the number of Malaysian Centurions stands at 40. The club has grown quickly and is one of the real success stories in ultra walking.
This event is unique in a number of ways
- it has a great mass participation and is a much bigger event numerically than other centurion events around the world
- it has firm Government support and offers cash prizes and subsidises overseas participants
- it regularly attracts large numbers of entrants from around the world
- any judging infringement incurs a 1 lap penalty, yet another innovation unique to this event.
As well as the 24 Hour event, Malaysia plays host to the very successful Penang International 12 Hour event which is also held every 2 years.
Full results of all Malaysian Centurion events can be viewed on http://www.championchip.com.my/
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