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men's_400_metres_running_in_a_walkover._American_ men's_400_metres_running_in_a_walkover._American_John_Carpenter_(athlete)">John_Carpenter_ John_Howard_Carpenter_(born_January_16,_1948)_is_an_American_filmmaker,_actor,_and_composer._Although_he_worked_in_various_film_genres,_he_is_most_commonly_associated_with__horror,_action,_and__science_fiction_films_of_the_1970s_and_1980s._He__...
_was_disqualified,_prompting_his_teammates_John_Taylor_(athlete).html" ;"title="John_Carpenter_(athlete).html" "title="Athletics at the 1908 Summer Olympics – Men's 400 metres">men's 400 metres running in a walkover. American John_Carpenter_ John_Howard_Carpenter_(born_January_16,_1948)_is_an_American_filmmaker,_actor,_and_composer._Although_he_worked_in_various_film_genres,_he_is_most_commonly_associated_with__horror,_action,_and__science_fiction_films_of_the_1970s_and_1980s._He__...
_was_disqualified,_prompting_his_teammates_John_Taylor_(athlete)">John_Baxter_Taylor_and_William_Robbins_(athlete).html" ;"title="John Carpenter (athlete)">John Carpenter John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, actor, and composer. Although he worked in various film genres, he is most commonly associated with horror, action, and science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s. He ...
 was disqualified, prompting his teammates John_Baxter_Taylor_and_William_Robbins_(athlete)">William_Robbins_to_refuse_to_race_in_protest..html" ;"title="John Taylor (athlete)">John Baxter Taylor and William_Robbins_to_refuse_to_race_in_protest.">John_Taylor_(athlete)">John_Baxter_Taylor_and_William_Robbins_(athlete)">William_Robbins_to_refuse_to_race_in_protest. A_walkover,_also_W.O._or_w/o_(originally_two_words:_"walk_over")_is_awarded_to_the_opposing_team/player_etc,_if_there_are_no_other_players_available,_or_they_have_been_disqualified,_because_the_other_contestants_have_forfeit_(sport).html" ;"title="William Robbins (athlete)">William Robbins to refuse to race in protest.">John Taylor (athlete)">John Baxter Taylor and William Robbins (athlete)">William Robbins to refuse to race in protest. A walkover, also W.O. or w/o (originally two words: "walk over") is awarded to the opposing team/player etc, if there are no other players available, or they have been disqualified, because the other contestants have forfeit (sport)">forfeited or the other contestants have withdrawn from the contest. The term can apply in sport, elections or other contexts where a victory can be achieved by default. The narrow and extended meanings of "walkover" as a single word are both found from 1829.


Sports

The word originates from
horseracing Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic pr ...
in the United Kingdom, where an entrant in a one-horse race run under
Jockey Club The Jockey Club is the largest commercial horse racing organisation in the United Kingdom. It owns 15 of Britain's famous racecourses, including Aintree, Cheltenham, Epsom Downs and both the Rowley Mile and July Course in Newmarket, amo ...
rules has at least to "walk over" the course before being awarded victory. This outcome was quite common at a time when there was no guaranteed prize money for horses finishing second or third, so there was no incentive to run a horse in a race it could not win. The 18th-century champion racehorse
Eclipse An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three ce ...
was so dominant over his contemporaries that he was allowed to walk over on nine occasions, and the 1828
Epsom Derby The Derby Stakes, also known as the Epsom Derby or the Derby, and as the Cazoo Derby for sponsorship reasons, is a Group 1 flat horse race in England open to three-year-old colts and fillies. It is run at Epsom Downs Racecourse in Surrey o ...
winner
Cadland Cadland (1825–1837) was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. In a career that lasted from April 1828 to 1831 he ran twenty-five times and won fifteen races, with several of his wins being walkovers in which all of his opponents were with ...
walked over on at least six occasions. The full formality of walking (or otherwise riding) over the entire track in a one-horse race remained in the rules governing racing until 2006; it was replaced by the lesser formality of making correct weight and riding past the judge's box to be declared the winner. The actual act of 'walking over' was seen in
Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...
matches during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was not uncommon in the 19th century for a scheduled match to be cancelled on the day, often due to one of the two teams failing to field enough players, but these were generally considered no-game or rescheduled. The first team to claim victory by walkover on such an occasion was Albert-park, in an 1870 match against
Railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
which was to have counted towards the
Challenge Cup The Challenge Cup is a knockout rugby league cup competition organised by the Rugby Football League, held annually since 1896, with the exception of 1915–1919 and 1939–1940, due to World War I and World War II respectively. It involves am ...
. Railway had insufficient players and declined to play, so the Albert-park team took to the field with the umpire and without opposition and put through two goals, claiming a walkover victory. The claimed victory and its impact on the Challenge Cup was controversial and widely disputed by the other clubs; one sportswriter at the time commented that "in connection with football, the idea of a walkover is simply absurd and unprecedented." Nevertheless, actual walkovers were thereafter often observed in similar circumstances: the umpire would bounce the ball to officially start the game, the unopposed team would score at least once to secure a lead, and the match would then be abandoned. The highest level occurrence of this was in a
Victorian Football Association The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...
match in
1900 As of March 1 ( O.S. February 17), when the Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day further behind, bringing the difference to 13 days until February 28 ( O.S. February 15), 2 ...
, and sporadic reports from games at the local level confirm that actual walkovers were observed as late as the 1930s, including outside Melbourne. In the
1908 Summer Olympics The 1908 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the IV Olympiad and also known as London 1908) were an international multi-sport event held in London, England, United Kingdom, from 27 April to 31 October 1908. The 1908 Games were ori ...
, there was a walkover for a gold medal by
Wyndham Halswelle Wyndham Halswelle (30 May 1882 – 31 March 1915) was a British athlete. He won the controversial 400m race at the 1908 Summer Olympics, becoming the only athlete to win an Olympic title by a walkover. Halswelle was also an infantry ...
in the rerun of the final race of the 400 m: Halswelle's two opponents refused to take part in the rerun, leaving Halswelle to jog the track alone to claim gold. In the
1920 Summer Olympics The 1920 Summer Olympics (french: Jeux olympiques d'été de 1920; nl, Olympische Zomerspelen van 1920; german: Olympische Sommerspiele 1920), officially known as the Games of the VII Olympiad (french: Jeux de la VIIe olympiade; nl, Spelen van ...
sailing program, there were a total of sixteen different yacht classes – no other Olympic games sailed more than seven classes until the 1980s – spreading the competitors so thinly that there were six gold medals won by walkover, each of those yachts completing its course unopposed to claim gold. A seventh yacht, Francis Richards' entrant in the 18' dinghy, also attempted a walkover but did not finish the course; this crew is officially recognized as gold medalists by the
International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
, but was not mentioned in the most official contemporary report by games organizers, casting doubt over whether or not the crew actually received gold medals at the time due to not finishing the course. There were also two of the sixteen classes with no entrants at all. A walkover occurred in the
2020 Summer Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the ...
in
sport climbing Sport climbing (or Bolted climbing) is a form of rock climbing that relies on permanent anchors (or bolts), permanently fixed into the rock for climber protection, in which a rope that is attached to the climber is clipped into the anchors to ...
. French climber
Bassa Mawem Bassa Mawem (born 9 November 1984) is a French professional speed climber. He qualified for the 2020 Summer Olympics.Qualification System – Games of the XXXII Olympiad – ''Sport climbing''; International Federation of Sport Climbing, 15 Marc ...
was injured in his last climb during qualification and was unable to compete in the finals, but IFSC rules did not allow him to be replaced. His opening round
speed climbing Speed climbing is a climbing discipline in which speed is the ultimate goal. Speed climbing is done on rocks, walls and poles and is only recommended for highly skilled and experienced climbers. Competition speed climbing, which takes place on ...
opponent in the finals, Czech climber
Adam Ondra Adam Ondra (born February 5, 1993) is a Czech professional rock climber, specializing in lead climbing and bouldering. In 2013, ''Rock & Ice'' described Ondra as a prodigy and the leading climber of his generation. Ondra is the only male athlete t ...
, was made to race unopposed up the wall to advance. A walkover was observed in the second leg of the 1974 FIFA World Cup qualification playoff between the Soviet Union and Chile. The Soviet Union refused to play in Chile two months after the 1973 right-wing coup d'état and FIFA awarded the game to Chile by a nominal 1–0 result; but the walkover itself was still staged, the Chilean team taking the field and captain
Francisco Valdés Francisco Segundo Valdés Muñoz, (19 March 1943 - 10 August 2009), nicknamed Chamaco, was a Chilean footballer and manager. Recognized as one of Chile's most important midfielders, with 215 official goals, he is the top scorer in the history of ...
scoring an unopposed goal in front of a crowd of 15,000. In a more general sense, the term 'walkover' is used broadly across many sports for a forfeiture due to one team being unable or unwilling to play, even if no actual act of walking over occurs. In some instances, there are distinctions between walkovers and other victories by default: for example, in
tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
a walkover occurs when a player withdraws prior to the match, but not when a player retired due to injury during a match. Many sporting bodies have a nominal score applied in the case of walkover for the purposes of points differential tiebreakers; the 2019 Pan American Games women's basketball tournament, for example, awarded a 20–0 walkover victory to Colombia when their Argentinian opponents turned up with the wrong uniforms. Colloquially, an extremely one-sided game may also be called a 'walkover', implying a similar score could have been achieved without the losing team's presence.


Other uses

In
poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...
games that use
blinds A window blind is a type of window covering. There are many different kinds of window blinds which use a variety of control systems. A typical window blind is made up of several long horizontal or vertical slats of various types of hard mater ...
, a hand is considered a walkover (usually shortened to ''walk'') when no other players call or raise the big blind, resulting in the player who posted the big blind winning the hand without opposition. Walks are most often seen in tournament play, since
cash games Cash games, also sometimes referred to as ring games or live action games, are poker games played with "real" chips and money at stake, often with no predetermined end time, with players able to enter and leave as they see fit. In contrast, a po ...
often allow the players to "split the blinds" (i.e. take back their blind bets in case there are no callers or raisers by the time the action gets to the small blind). Chopping is not permitted in tournaments. An
uncontested election An uncontested election is an election in which the number of candidates is the same as or fewer than the number of places available for election, so that all candidates are guaranteed to be elected. An uncontested single-winner election is one w ...
is often referred to as a walkover, when it is also referred to as winning "by default". The word is used more generally by extension for an election in which the winner is not the only participant but where no opponent has a credible chance of victory.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed.: walkover


References

{{reflist Sports terminology