1981 oddity — the year with two masters outdoor nationals
While doing some spring cleaning over at mastershistory.org, I came across results for competing masters national outdoor championships in 1981 — one held in Atlanta (mid-June) and another held in Los Gatos (southwest of San Jose) in August. It appears the Atlanta meet was some rival group, called TFA. The Los Gatos affair appears to be the standard issue, since it was under the TAC umbrella (The Athletics Congress came before USATF). James Burnett is credited with setting an M40 world record in the 400 at the August meet — 49.36. Anybody recall that year — and why two masters nationals were held? What was TFA, and what happened to this group?
3 Responses
The Atlanta meet was NOT the national meet that year. The label is wrong in NMN. It was just the regular annual meet. Atlanta did host the nationals in 1978 or 1979, however.
Ken,
Past newsletters from David Pain and Track & Field News articles dealt with the struggles between the AAU, TFA, The Athletics congress . . . . the USATF we have today replaced all those past problems.
Masters Track & Field has had to grow through the struggles of the open track & field movement.
-Jeff
Ken, thanks for the Spring cleaning, I just did
our floors…
What fun to look at the old results, 1981, wow,
I had no idea what I could do at that time, never kept track (literally speaking) and age 46… how long ago was that!…
Unfortunately, we lost some of the older and younger athletes, but those memories are still
present.
Is it my poor eyesight that I could not detect a
javelin competition at that meet?
Anyway, thanks for the memories!
Christel Donley (former Miller)
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