Archive for August, 2009

Nadine O’Connor top 10,000 points in masters national deca

Usain Bolt, meet your master. The same day Bolt ran 9.58 in Berlin, Nadine O’Connor finished an equally incredible decathlon, totaling 10,234 points, according to early reports out of Shoreline, Washington. Of course, it helps that Nadine holds W65 age-group world records in two of the events — the 100 and pole vault. The historic […]

August 16, 2009   Posted in: Uncategorized  4 Comments

Sandy Pashkin keeps job as WMA Records Committee chair

Contrary to my earlier speculations, Sandy Pashkin of Oregon has been retained as Records Committee chairwoman of World Masters Athletics, according to a WMA source who wished to remain anonymous. This means she’ll continue to oversee the WMA records page and review records submissions. Having lost her bid for WMA vice president-stadia, she’ll presumably have […]

August 16, 2009   Posted in: Uncategorized  18 Comments

Jamaica’s McFarlane makes IAAF Berlin 400H final at age 37

Danny McFarlane is in his own universe. Competing in the semifinals at the IAAF world championships today in Berlin, the Jamaican legend lowered his own listed M35 world record in the 400-meter hurdles to 48.49, beating his 2008 mark of 48.57. (Just kidding. Danny ran 48.30 at an obscure meet in China last year. WMA’s […]

August 16, 2009   Posted in: Uncategorized  3 Comments

Flo Meiler conquers milestone 2-meter barrier in vault at 75

Flo Meiler in Oshkosh During a record attempt last month at Oshkosh nationals, Flo Meiler of Vermont fell and banged her head on the pole vault box. The gash required six staples. She recovered quickly, though, and took home a dozen medals.  But would the record later prove a mental barrier?  Heck no. On August […]

August 16, 2009   Posted in: Uncategorized  No Comments

Tom Phillips rocks — and rolls out thousands of Lahti photos

Tom Phillips wore two hats at Lahti words — M55 sprinter and British masters track photographer. He excelled at both, winning a gold medal (as third leg of the UK team that beat the USA team in my 4×1) and building a magnificent photo archive of the WMA meet. See it here. He also wrote about […]

August 15, 2009   Posted in: Uncategorized  4 Comments

Bill Collins ducking the competition? Old slur re-emerges

According to meet results from the National Senior Games in Palo Alto, all-world M55 sprinter Bill Collins ran the 100 prelims and semifinals but not the finals. He didn’t run the 200 but entered (and won) the 400. Old rival Oscar Peyton ended up winning the 1 and 2 — without Bill in the field. […]

August 14, 2009   Posted in: Uncategorized  63 Comments

More scholarly attention paid to masters runners, decline

“Masters endurance athletes are capable of remarkable athletic and physiological functional performance, thereby representing a uniquely positive example of ‘exceptional ageing,’ ” says a Journal of Physiology study that’s come my way. See it here. Of course we know the next part: “Endurance exercise performance decreases during middle-age and declines at an even more rapid rate […]

August 13, 2009   Posted in: Uncategorized  4 Comments

Complete Lahti results are posted on mastershistory.org

Since the official Lahti results site can vanish at any time, I’ve collated the day-by-day text files, throws pentathlon results and marathon team results into a single PDF — 814 pages long. See it here. I made it searchable, so you can go straight to the name or event you’re looking for. Also, I forgot to […]

August 12, 2009   Posted in: Uncategorized  11 Comments

Rita Hanscom (finally!) named USATF Athlete of the Week

Rita Hanscom of San Diego was named USATF Athlete of the Week today by Indy officials — a long-overdue honor coming on the heels of her incredible five-gold performance at Lahti worlds. She should have gotten it seven days ago, but USATF named nobody for the weekly award. Cecile Nguyen wrote for USATF: “Hanscom wrapped […]

August 12, 2009   Posted in: Uncategorized  14 Comments

Multi-eventers to gather for national masters championships

In “Rome 1960,” David Maraniss‘ wonderful account of the “Olympics that changed the world,” Rafer Johnson keeps telling himself: “I’ll never have to run the dang 1500 again” as he shadows UCLA teammate C.K. Yang of Taiwan. Rafer won decathlon gold, thanks to the self-chatter. He left it all on the track. But Rafer was […]

August 12, 2009   Posted in: Uncategorized  13 Comments