Archive for September, 2016

Heads up for meet directors: USATF meet sanction fees rising

USATF gadfly Becca Gillespy Peter of polevaultpower.com notes on Facebook that Indy is boosting the price of meet sanctions. The official announcement says: “USATF has not modified its sanction fees for at least thirteen years, yet inflation costs have risen in excess of 25% during that time. In addition, USATF’s ability to continue offering this […]

September 7, 2016   Posted in: Uncategorized  3 Comments

Italy’s Fabrizio Donato destroys 23-year-old WR in M40 triple jump

At 1989 Eugene worlds, the great former UCLA Bruin Milan Tiff, 40, triple-jumped a world record 15.70 meters (51-6). That crushed the listed M40 WR of 15.06 (49-5) by Germany’s Michael Sauer in 1982. Four years after Milan’s massive hop-step-and-jump, another American — Ray Kimble — improved the WR to 16.58 (54-4Âľ). And there it […]

September 6, 2016   Posted in: Uncategorized  3 Comments

WMA scrambles to revive website after someone pulled the plug

The World Masters Athletics website has been offline since late August, and now we know why: “It looks like the current host provider (NICOLAS RUSSI of Switzerland, mediasprint gmbh) turned everything off without giving anyone a heads up,” says Jeff Brower, current WMA webmaster. “So we’re working feverishly to get the new website up. Hopefully […]

September 6, 2016   Posted in: Uncategorized  3 Comments

W55 world record in long jump sets up 3-way Perth showdown

Germany’s Ramona Pfeiffer, the W50 Lyon world champion, claimed the world record in the W55 long jump over the weekend, reaching 5.06 meters (16-7 1/4) at her nation’s club meet. She beat the listed WR of 5.01 by countrywoman Christiane Schmalbruch way back in 1993. But Ramona could lose that record to any of several […]

September 5, 2016   Posted in: Uncategorized  One Comment

Germans hold club championships by 10-year age groups

USATF stages an open club championship and awards a team title at masters nationals. But nothing we do compares with the German masters club meet. Saturday in Essen, North Rhine and LVN-Kreis hosted a major event where club titles were awarded for men and women separately in 10-year age groups. Not sure how long they’ve […]

September 4, 2016   Posted in: Uncategorized  8 Comments

Kathy Martin 104% age-graded tops masters at Fifth Avenue Mile

Results of Saturday’s Fifth Avenue Mile show an amazing mark by Hall of Famer Kathy Martin. At age 64, she ran 5:50 for an age-graded 104 percent — worth a 4:02 mile for ages 20-30. (Last year was a mess with Kathy first being reported as a runner-up in her age group.) The listed W60 […]

September 3, 2016   Posted in: Uncategorized  5 Comments

NEH scam targets masters tracksters: No free lunch (or $50,000)

Friday morning I got a Facebook message from a well-known masters track official. Now I think his account was hacked, and it wasn’t him contacting me. “I’m fine doing great and very happy and excited, because yesterday is the happiest day of my life,” said the message, later adding: “Didn’t you heard [sic] about the […]

September 2, 2016   Posted in: Uncategorized  2 Comments

Vancouver’s Americas Masters Games also hosted distant nations

The Americas Masters Games wrapped up Wednesday in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the results are here. Joy Upshaw won six golds, and was close to her own W55 American record (13.04) in the 80-meter hurdles. She ran 13.09 into a 1.2mps wind. But I was especially impressed by the range of foreign entrants. They came […]

September 1, 2016   Posted in: Uncategorized  4 Comments