Masters Track News and Muse

A birthday gift to us all: Toronto 1975 results

We're a month early, but this gift couldn't wait. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first World Masters Track & Field Championships -- held Aug. 11-17, 1975, in Toronto, Canada -- I've created two PDF files of the original 6 1/4-inch-by-8 1/2-inch results book. The first file is only an image of the book (about 40 pages' worth). The second file funkily evokes the typeface of the original -- but is searchable. You do Ctrl-F (or Apple-F with a Mac) and type in a name or event, and all instances of that keyword are shown.

A broadband Internet connection is advised to download this beast. But you'll love it when you see it.

The folks who organized this first world meet -- two years before WAVA was founded -- had a heck of a sense of humor, as evidenced by the book's foreword:

"This book contains the complete results of the first World Masters Track and Field Championships held in Toronto, Canada, from the 11th to the 17th of August, 1975. With over 1,400 entrants and 5,000 individual starts, this was the largest track and field meet ever held in North America. A least one event, the marathon, was the largest ever to have taken place in Canada.

"Inspired not only by the scope of the meet, the unique spirit of all the competitors and the enthusiasm of the crowd, the winners rang up ten new masters world records, 53 new Canadian Masters Open records and thirty Canadian Masters Native records. Doubtless there are more than these as we do not have masters records for walking events or ladies' events to hand.

"Those who attended will realize that, important as the printed results might be, they are only the bare bones of the real results. Who will forget Hal Higdon'seap for joy as he won that great steeplechase race from Doug Worling and Jim MacDonald? ...... Or surely the most competitive of all masters races ever held
was the Class 1A 800 Metres when eleven runners ran shoulder to shoulder the whole distance and it was anyone's race right to the tape. Or who will forget Alby Thomas, Roy Fowler, Jack Greenwood, Dick Stolpe, Al Guidet, Theo Orr, George HcGrath, Manfred Garbisch, Ken Carnine, Bill Fitzgerald, Thedde Jensen, the Tartan Flash or any of the ladies? (That got me out of trouble, didn't it?)

"Most memorable of all, who will forget his own effort in this thrilling event? . . .

"However, whether you returned home bemedalled or with just the fond memory of having taken part in what will undoubtedly become important history, each one of you is surely a winner.

"Away from the scenes of competition, other important events took place. At an open meeting held in Convocation Hall a t the University of Toronto, with representatives from numerous countries present, the World Masters Track and Field Association was born. An elected Steering Committee has been charged witht the task of proposing the scope and structure of the Association.

"At this meeting another important decision was made -- the acceptance by the
members at large of the offer of the City of Gothenburg, Sweden, to host the
second World Masters Track and Field Championships i n 1977. An address embodying this offer by Brigadier General Bjoern Lindskog appears elsewhere in this booklet.

"It has been a considerable, hectic, pleasurable, exciting experience t o have
staged this meet and, looking back even as time goes on, I believe it will always
be a momentous one."

Don Farquharson, the Canadian who would become WAVA's first president, apparently was the author of this foreword.

I'm also assuming it was Don who penned the concluding summary:

"There were more 'results' than just the times and distances.

"For example, we believe there was a whole lot of fun and a general feeling that it was worth doing.

"But that's belief rather than knowledge, because to those of us behind the scenes, the problems were more obvious than the successes. So nother 'result' was an awareness of the difficulties that arise in an event of this sort and some idea of how to avoid them. Naturally, we will pass this knowledge on as appropriate, but there are matters in which the competitors themselves can make a significant contribution and we, therefore, take this opportunity (our last) of sharing our experience with all of you.

June 1974

"With much enthusiasm and some trepidation , an embryo control cormittee met to bring to actuality (to) the project embarked on a year earlier by David Pain, Don Farquharson and the C.N.E., and on which much work had already been done by Don and Elwyn, with Ken Hignell already becoming administratively indispensable.

"We were i n trouble iimmediately. The C.N.E. track wasn't going to be available and you can't find a much more fundamental problem than that if you're putting on a track meet! We settled on Etobicoke and although the track surface eventually turned out to have some undesirable characteristics -- and we had headaches getting to and from it, perhaps our choice was justified after all. Obvious conclusion --- make certain of your track and location before you start!"

And so it continued.

Several long paragraphs later, the Canadian concluded:

"We may yet be able to look around in 20 years time and see that we have preserved the 'fitness and participation' value of age-group competition and so have set a worthwhile example. As we said when you arrived -- Good luck to all of us!"

Ed Whitlock, the 74-year-old marathon phenom, was the hero who provided the results book -- shipping it and several others at no small expense from his Ontario home to my suburban San Diego address. He was there at the creation of world masters track -- taking fifth in the M40 800.

Your first book is up, Ed. Four more to go.

Posted by kenstone at July 12, 2005 4:14 AM