How do you measure greatness? Masters track has many yardsticks: Hall of Fame induction, Athlete of the Year honors, world titles, world records. But what separates the superstars? In recent days, my question of Who’s the Masters Athlete of the Decade? has prompted some public discussion — but also some private back-and-forth. One debate centers on Nadine O’Connor vs. Phil Raschker. Both Americans rewrote the record books between 2000 and 2009. Both won major public acclaim and gold medals galore. Nadine and Phil are as good as they get in the sport, but which is the best? Since Nadine is five years older than Phil (born in early 1942 and 1947, respectively), they don’t face each other. So that’s where it gets dicey. Can the Age-Graded Tables separate them?  Bud Held thinks so.

Nadine O’Connor (left) and Phil Raschker rarely go head-to-head
— except for photos like this one my wife took at 2007 Orono nationals.

Bud is unabashedly Nadine’s biggest fan and supporter — since they live together in Del Mar, north of San Diego. But he’s also a great student of the sport, and is one of the few Masters Hall of Famers who also is a member of the National Track & Field Hall of Fame. He held world records in the javelin in the 1950s and set world masters records in the pole vault in the recent years. So his vote counts. Big time.

But so does Bob Weiner’s. As the longtime media chief for the USATF Masters T&F Committee, Bob has witnessed all of the best American masters athletes of the decade. And he argues forcefully for Phil Raschker as the decade’s greatest masters athlete.

Both have exchanged email over the issue in recent days, and shared their thoughts with me. I was impressed with the logic and persuasiveness of both.  And I felt their passionate cases deserved public airing. So I sweet-talked Bud into letting me post his essay. And Bob allowed me to run his take as well.

Do these arguments settle the question? Probably not.

Do track fans still debate the greatest decathlete?  You betcha.

Baseball has its Hot Stove League. Football and basketball fans choose their favorites via fantasy leagues. Is it not time for a great debate on the greatest masters? So without further ado, here are the cases for Phil and Nadine as No. 1 of the past 10 years.

FROM BUD HELD:

NOMINEE FOR MASTERS ATHLETE OF THE DECADE

If any athlete other than Phil Raschker is considered masters athlete of the decade, they will have to be compared to Phil. Phil Raschker is the gold standard of masters athletics. She has earned enough world and national championship medals in the past decade to fill a medium-sized treasure chest.

She currently has more world records on the books than any other masters athlete, male or female. It is obviously impossible for any athlete to match her sheer quantity of medals and records. There is one, however, who can challenge her, not on quantity but on quality.

Nadine O’Connor has taken the two most difficult and demanding events in track and field events to entirely new levels. The discussion set out below is pretty much encapsulated in a quick look at the outdoor world record book and 2006 Age-Graded Table. Phil currently holds 10 listed world records spread out over nine events. The age-graded percentages range from 90.2.% to 100.00%. Nadine has four records in three events. Her age-graded percentages range from 100.60% to 129.68%

An inch is as good as a mile when it comes to winning a gold medal, but the mile is much better for the record. Bob Beamon created a new word in the English language when he broke the existing long jump record by 55 centimeters, a mere 6.59%. Nadine increased the previously held W65-69 pole vault record by 79 centimeters. an astounding 32.91% Beamon did it all in one jump. Nadine did it a little at a time.

Whatever the timing, Nadine’s vault increase is way beyond “Beamonesque.” Either the existing vault record was really bad, or Nadine did something really outstanding. A 79-centimeter increase in a pole vault record is a little hard to grasp in its singularity. It needs some meaningful comparison.

Nadine’s vault record created an unprecedented 10-year age-group record inversion. A 5-year age-group record inversion is extremely rare. In all of masters track and field age group events, men and women, there are only two other cases where a higher age group record is superior to a five-year younger age-group record. These are the W55 javelin and the W55 weight throw. Nadine’s vault record at age 67 is not only higher than the W60-64 vault record, it is higher than the W55-59 world record currently held by Phil Raschker (who set it at age 55).

Nadine’s vault mark projects significantly farther in younger age-group rankings than any other mark in the history of masters track and field. There are a number of cases where masters athletes have achieved performances that would rank among the all-time top 25 in 10-year-younger group. The highest ranking, other than Nadine’s first-place ranking in a 10-year-younger ranking was accomplished by Evaun Williams, a 70-year-old javelin thrower of Great Britain whose 33.64-meter throw would tie for ninth among the all-time W60-64 javelin throws.

Only one masters athlete other than Nadine could manage a ranking among the top 25 in a 15-year-younger group. Jutta Shafer of Germany produced a 44.38 meter W65 hammer throw that would rank 13th among the all time W50-55 hammer throws. Nadine ranks third in the 15-year-younger pole vault category.

Going where no other masters athlete — of any age, male or female — has ever gone, her 3.19-meter (10-5 1/2) mark at age 67 ranks sixth in the 20-year-younger category and 15th in the 25-year-younger category. Nadine actually looks a lot like a 40-year-old vaulter. See her clearing 10-6 in practice at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbcub-nR7-U and try to keep in mind while watching that she is actually a 67-year-old grandmother.

Women’s masters pole vaulting was first contested in 1987. This may add some credibility to the argument that women’s pole vault records are soft. The answer is to compare Nadine’s mark to men’s marks.

Masters men have been vaulting since the beginning of modern masters athletics in the 1960s. Their records are well-contested. The list is headed by the great Boo Morcom, who leaped 3.77 (12-4 1/2) in 1986. Nadine’s mark would rank 24th among the all time M65-69 vaulters. (If Nadine had jumped one centimeter higher, she would be tied for 14th). And, of course, it comes as no surprise to find that no other woman athlete, of any age, in any event, has ever even come close to a mark that would rank among the all-time top 25 men of the same age.

Merlene Ottey is the only female athlete who has ever produced a mark that would rank anywhere in the same age group among men. Her best ranking comes from her W45 100 meters at 11.34. This would qualify for a tie for 38th place among all time M45-49 sprinters.

Nadine O’Connor’s fame as a pole vaulter has spread far and wide, but she is little known as a multi-event athlete. She branched out at the 2009 nationals at Oshkosh WI, where she was the most decorated athlete of the meet with six gold and two silver medals. She won gold in the pentathlon (an American record), the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the 80-meter hurdles, the discus and the high jump. She won silver in the shot and in the javelin. She was too busy running from event to event to pole vault.

In September of 2009, she entered her second-ever decathlon competition at the USATF National Multi-Event Championships in Shoreline, Washington, and came up with an unheard of 10,234 points. It was not only the highest total ever scored, it beat the previous best of any masters decathlete — of any age, male or female — by nearly 1,700 points. The previous high score of 8,548 was set by 35-year-old Lev. Lobodin of Russia in 2004.

There are those who will look at Nadine’s decathlon score with a bit of skepticism, and perhaps rightly so. It has been known for some time that the 2006 Age-Graded Table is somewhat skewed to favor older women. Her 10,000-plus performance scored on the 2006 table may indeed not provide a fair and proper comparison to all other age groups. This problem is being remedied.

A new 2010 Age-Graded Table has already been established with the intent of putting all age groups, men and women, on a level playing field with regard to points. The 2010 table lowers a number of factors in both men and women’s catagories.

Most factors are changed by only a few percentage points. Women’s throwing events have some larger changes, but by far the largest change is in the women’s pole vault factor. The W65 factor was lowered by a whopping 18.4%.

Nadine’s 10,234 decathlon world record will be lowered this year to conform with the 2010 table. Her revised record will be 8,948. Other age category records will be lowered as well, just not quite so much. The true testimony to the magnitude of Nadine’s decathlon achievement is observed here. After her score is lowered by more than 12% by the leveling 2010 table, it will still be higher than any masters athlete, of any age group, male or female, ever scored on the current lenient 2006 (or earlier even more lenient) table.

Nadine has the ability to set more world records. The only reason that she does not hold a world record in the heptathlon is that she has never done one. The 400 is her best distance but she doesn’t run it in open competition because she does not train for it. Her world records in the 100 and 200 are largely a byproduct of her speed training for the pole vault. She has run a wind-aided world record in the 80-meter hurdles and under difficult conditions missed a world record in the 300-meter hurdles by half a second in her second ever try. Her track and field choice is to be the best possible old lady pole vaulter and she works hard at it, somewhat to the detriment of other possible records.

FROM BOB WEINER:

There is no doubt that Phil Raschker has the quantity, but what about the quality?
Bud, I can’t address whose individual record(s) ever has (have) been more
amazing — Phil’s are also and she has many times demolished previous ones. But even not considering that, the single and fewer-events-records/victories people should be trumped for “decade” honors by the massive depth quantity of championships/records people like Spitz/Phelps/Carl Lewis/Woods (yikes– he just won Sportsman of
Decade, but…) and Raschker.

That’s my view, and you are certainly
entitled to yours. The Sullivan Award people named Raschker TWICE this decade (as a finalist) — unprecedented even once for MTF to be in the top five with the Tim Tebows and Michael Phelps and Apollo Ohnos — but twice?! Of course, both women are fantastic for masters and our mission.