Steeplechase, pole vault WRs set at Santa Barbara meet
Marie-Louise Michelsohn of New York lowered her own W65 world record in the 2K steeplechase yesterday at the Club West masters meet at UC Santa Barbara — traditionally the masters finale on the West Coast. MLM ran 9:00.2, according to Andy Hecker, who helped officiate. Her previous best was 9:09.25 at 2007 Orono masters nationals. Bud Held raised his M80 world record in the pole vault to 2.75 (9-0 1/4) after setting a 2.65 (8-8 1/4) mark in Spokane this past August. Andy writes that Marie-Louise “was chased and finally beaten by (M60) Rollie Cavaletto who ended up in 8:58.4.” The meet was hand-timed, Andy notes, because “the automatic timing actuator never worked.” M80 thrower Arnie Gaynor also set a record (probably in the shot), but his mark wasn’t immediately available. “Most of the meet had a drizzle from a fast-moving storm that passed through Southern California,” Andy writes. “There were lots of puddles, scheduling changes and dropouts because of it.”
3 Responses
I don’t remember UCSB having a rail so any records run in a race over 100m would not count as a record. There would also have to be 3 handtimers, since the FAT was not in operation.
Actually there is a curb around the entire track, save the steeplechase runway. It is concrete with drainage holes for 3/4 of the track and metal on the east curve. Curbing will not be an issue at this facility, we can provide pictures in case there is any question.
Mark, you toured the track 25 times in lane 1 during your 10,000, I’d think you would have noticed.
For Mary’s record, we did round up three USATF Certified officials as hand timers, including myself. Two watches read 9.00.11 and 9.00.13 which both round to the official 9.00.2 I also took Mary and Rolie’s lap scores throughout the race. Mary has all the documentation with the record application. The rest of the times from the meet were manually started automatic times=hand times.
While I generally was not working field events, the reason I know about Bud Held’s Pole Vault record was for the exact same reason. When he raised the bar to the record height, we rounded up three officials to carefully measure the bar each time it went up, watch his jumps and measure it again after it stayed up on his third attempt. Furthermore, all of our measurement procedures were also supervised by a fourth official, Dr. Bob Marcus, the meet referee.
When we know a record is being attempted, we officials try to make sure all the t’s are crossed and the i’s are dotted.
Unofficial results I’ve been sent say M80 Arnie Gaynor put the shot 13.20 (43-03.75) — which is short of his own listed age-group world record of 13.44 (44-1 1.4).
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