HIGH ACHIEVERS: Math professor Diane Guignard puts down impressive numbers to win Ontario 20 km race walking title

By Martin Cleary

Diane Guignard was born to be a race walker, but she didn’t know that until almost two years ago.

After arriving in Canada five years ago from her homeland of Switzerland (via the United States) to be a professor in the University of Ottawa’s mathematics and statistics department, she was looking for a sport to keep herself active and find a good social circle.

When she was growing up, Guignard loved artistic gymnastics, cross-country skiing, tennis and hiking. She also enjoyed going for long walks at a quick pace, which got her thinking about race walking.

In November, 2023, she approached the Bytown Walkers Club de marche and it has been a perfect fit for her after almost two years.

“I walked fast, but I never learned to race walk,” Guignard said in a phone interview this week. “I only wanted to try it. I tried it. I liked it.”

Please add, she’s good at it.

And she appears to have a solid future ahead of her. Once she started race walking, she noticed immediate improvements and that served as her motivation.

“She’s progressing faster than one might expect,” Bytown coach Roger Burrows wrote in an email interview Thursday. “That said, occasionally, we get a ‘natural’ and Diane is one.”

The last time Burrows remembers a natural race walker in Ottawa was the late 1990s and Rachel Robichaud held that distinction.

Once Guignard got the feel for racing walking with its interesting hip-swaying movements and required heel-and-toe connections with the ground, she started to enter races.

On Sept. 21, she had a breakout performance during the fourth annual Fall Classic Race Walks around a 1,250-metre loop at Lansdowne Park, where she won the women’s open 20-kilometre race, which also served as the Athletics Ontario championship.

Making her debut over that distance, Guignard completed the course in one hour, 47 minutes and 36 seconds, which ranks her third this year among Canadian race walkers for that distance. Her time for the first 10 kilometres was a personal-best 51:40 and she also dipped under her previous best time for that distance for the final 10 kilometres at 55:56.

Her 10-kilometre split time of 51:40 placed her second in the Canadian rankings.

“It always helps when an athlete was a competitive gymnast,” Burrows added. “They generally have great awareness of what their body is doing and can do.

“Early on, we saw a couple of things about her walking, which was recreational at the time. I just (said), ‘Diane, can you do A like this and B like that?’ and nothing else was needed. She also has a strong cardio background, likely from various activities in the Swiss winter.”

Understandably, Guignard was nervous as well as a little excited entering the provincial women’s 20-kilometre race walking championship. She previously had only competed in races over 1,500, 3,000 and 5,000 metres. But her preparation since June made a huge difference to get her familiar with the distance.

“I was excited and nervous,” Guignard explained. “The nervousness was about the uncertainty. I was going by feeling. I didn’t want to start fast, but I didn’t know what going too fast was. But my training went well and I was in good shape.”

As the youngest racer in the four-athlete field by a minimum of 23 years, she executed a steady pace over the 16 laps, although she did feel the heat of the day for the final five kilometres.

“The race went really well,” she continued. “The first 15 kilometres felt good, but I slowed a bit for the last five kilometres. I didn’t get tired, but I could feel the heat. There were a lot of people cheering and I enjoyed it.

“I was surprised by my time. I didn’t know what to expect. But based on my training I knew I could do under two hours, but I didn’t know how much under two hours.”

Guignard adjusted her training schedule to prepare for her 20-kilometre debut. Starting in June, she did a long-distance walk every Sunday through September. She began with an hour walk and added 15 minutes each time out until she reached two hours and 30 minutes.

“I did train well and put in a lot of kilometres,” Guignard explained. “I didn’t put too much pressure on myself, but I would go by the feeling and see how things go.”

Burrows, who coaches Guignard along with Dave Archibald and Joanne Gage, also called the 20-kilometre race an unknown for his athlete. But less than two hours after the start, he learned a lot about Guignard.

“I have to say I was blown away by her first few laps of the Fall Classic,” Burrows wrote. “We knew she would likely do a PB at 10km, but I don’t think anyone expected 51:40. So, her second 10km was just under 56:00. An ideal, experienced 20km would perhaps have been the other way around or at least more even paced.

“But she had trained wonderfully over the summer for the distance itself and so was able to maintain well and stay out of physical trouble. She looked fabulous throughout.”

Earlier this season, Guignard won three national titles at the Canadian masters track and field championships. At the outdoors meet in Laval, she captured the women’s 35-39 1,500 metres in 6:49 and the 5,000 metres in 24:08. At the indoor masters nationals, she was first in the women’s 3,000 metres in 18:09.44.

At the Canadian Track and Field League finals on the Terry Fox Athletic Facility track, Guignard won the women’s 3,000-metre race in 14:23.26.

Guignard is posting much faster times this season than her debut season in 2024, where she also had some impressive results, when she won four Canadian masters championships – the 1,500 and 3,000 metres indoors and the 1,500 and 5,000 metres outdoors.

In other races at the Fall Classic, Vanessa Johnson, Bytown, was third in the open 10 kilometres in 1:07:45; Lauren Plamondon, Bytown, was seventh in the open five kilometres in 33:36 and Logan Vezina, Gatineau, and Penny Roy, Ottawa, were one-two respectively in the high school 1,250 metres in 7:07 and 8:24.