Mirko Jalava of Finland is considered one of the world’s top track statisticians, but I’m having doubts about his fact-checking (or at least keyboarding). In Roger Ruth’s latest data dump — searching for over-35 athletes on Mirko’s 2008 season lists at his pay site — two sprinters are listed with wildly inaccurate dates of birth. While perusing the 400-meter lists, two names (and DOBs) caught my eye. According to Mirko, Americans Johnny Thomas ran 48.76 at age 44 and Kevin Hawkins ran 48.62 at age 43. Yowza! Those are near WR times in their age group. How come I haven’t heard of these gents?

Uhm, that’s because they’re still kids. Johnny ran for a Texas high school this season and Kevin competes for the Air Force Academy.
Mirko got the marks, venues and dates of competitions right — but gave the athletes wrong dates of birth (or Roger transcribed the DOBs in error).
First, here is Roger’s latest stat blast:

As I wrote in the initial post of this series, the procedure is to sort Mirko Jalava’s 2008 World Deep Lists < for each event by age of birth, starting with 1973 and backward from there, to identify all athletes on the list of masters age levels (35 and older on the date of competition). In summarizing the lists, I’ve bold-faced the data for the oldest on the list, and also have noted the youngest athlete on the world list in each event.
Masters on Men’s 400m World List for 2008
N=2392
List threshold=49.00
402 46.92A Anderson dos Santos BRA 23 Apr 72 Cochabamba 31 May
723 47.45 Dedrick Evans USA 4 Feb 73 Atlanta GA 17 May
734 47.46 Aleksey Aksyonov RUS 5 Jun 72 Chelyabinsk 28
Jun
1241 48.07 Jata Shankar IND 20 Jun 72 Bhopal 29 Feb
1581 48.38 Flávio Godoy BRA 13 Dec 69 Rio de Janeiro 7 Jun
1700 48.48 Marc Foucan FRA 14 Oct 71 Montpellier 18 May
2062 48.76 Johnny Thomas USA 3 Aug 63 Austin TX
9 May
1861 48.62A Kevin Hawkins USA 18 Mar 65 Laramie WY
3 May
1903 48.65 Jimmy Jean-Joseph FRA 15 Oct 72 Aix-les-Bains 4 May
2282 48.93 Sean Adams USA 24 May 71 Walnut CA 8 Mar
2326 48.96 Ruslan Mashchenko RUS 11 Nov 71 Sochi 27 May
Youngest athlete (15) on this list:
1388 48.21 Curtis Woods IRL 93 Mannheim 22 Jun
Masters on Women’s 400m World List for 2008
N=1069
List threshold=55.75
215 53.11 Donna Fraser GBR 7 Nov 72 Birmingham 12 Jul
695 55.00 Natalya Tsyganova RUS 7 Feb 71 Moskva 4 Jun
771 55.18 Jearl Miles-Clark USA 4 Sep 66 Gainesville FL
4 Apr
814 55.25 Patrizia Spuri ITA 18 Feb 73 Tivoli
13 Jul
892 55.43 Lena Aruhn SWE 22 Apr 70 Celle Ligure 24 Jun
921 55.50 Anja Rücker GER 20 Dec 72 Nürnberg 5 Jul
Youngest athlete (13) on this list:
965 55.57 Tiffany Terry USA 95 Omaha NE 27 Jul

Now here’s what I found with 5 minutes of Googling:
Johnny ran his 48.76 at the Texas state high school championships on May 9, 2008:

Event 414 Boys 400 Meter Dash 4A
=======================================================================
National: ! 45.25 1993 Calvin Harrison, Salinas N. Salinas,
State: + 45.24 1994 Marlon Ramsey, Beaumont West Brook
Conf 4A: * 45.64 1991 Deon Minor, Paris
Name Year School Finals Points
=======================================================================
Finals
1 Kevin Furlough Dallas Wilson 47.77 10
2 Joe Barb Denton Guyer 48.10 8
3 Travis Cunningham Rockwall Heath 48.35 6
4 Johnny Thomas Texas City 48.76 4
5 Stan Smith Crowley 48.86 2
6 Spencer Eggleston JR Pflu Connall 48.88 1
7 Justin Krautz Nederland 49.28
— Brett Parker Gregory-Portland DQ 4 steps out of lane

Here are the official results of the Texas 400.
And Kevin’s 48.62? That came May 3, 2008, at a meet in Laramie, Wyoming, as he tuned up for his specialty, the 800, at the following week’s Mountain West Conference championships.

Event 26 Men 400 Meter Dash
===================================================================================
Name Year School Seed Finals H# Points
===================================================================================
1 Hoerner, Tyler SO Northern Colorad 47.87 47.81 2 10
2 Terry, Nate SR Colorado 47.90 48.16 2 8
3 Effler, Collin SR Northern Colorad 48.53 48.55 2 6
4 Hawkins, Kevin SR Air Force 48.55 48.62 2 4
5 Fox, Brian FR Colorado State 48.40 48.63 2 2
6 Tucker, Cole SO Colorado State 47.79 49.54 2 1
7 Cronin, Shane SO Colorado 50.20 50.31 1
8 Hansen, Sam FR Wyoming 50.85 50.55 1
9 Stenzel, Andy JR Colorado State 50.67 2
10 Severino, Chris FR Air Force 51.14 51.83 1
11 Palicia, Noah FR Air Force 48.89 53.28 2

I haven’t inspected the rest of the marks, but they look plausible. And many are Europeans.
But now I have to suggest that Roger’s lists not be taken as gospel.
The Mighty Mirko is striking out.