Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Allen Johnson wins one for the geezers in Berlin meet

The best masters hurdler in the world wasn’t in Riccione. He was off doing his own thing. Yesterday, Allen Johnson, age 36, won a race against a bunch of Osaka finalists. His time was 13.33 — over 42-inch hurdles, not 39-inch masters barriers. But that’s not even his best time of the season. Allen ran […]

September 17, 2007   Posted in: Uncategorized  Comments Closed

USATF Pacific Association is fast on worlds uptake

Sacramento 2011 should be a first-rate event, especially in terms of marketing and publicity. A news release crafted by Mark Winitz, the host association’s communications manager, is a model for how USATF as a national body should treat masters. (Indy HQ has yet to do a wrapup of the meet. Sigh.) Anyway, Mark featured Joy […]

September 17, 2007   Posted in: Uncategorized  9 Comments

Fourteen short videos online from Riccione worlds

YouTube and Riccione TV have posted the same videos from the meet, which ended Saturday. The one below is pretty representative. You get music from the soundtrack of “Kill Bill” and MTV-style editing, which means you don’t see a fraction of a jump or throw you want to view. Very frustrating. But at least you […]

September 17, 2007   Posted in: Uncategorized  One Comment

Ben James awarded medal that’s better than gold

Worlds is in the books. The Riccione medal table has been posted — with Germany (and its 900-member team) taking first as expected with 315 medals (108 of them gold). But you won’t find Ben James’ award noted in the M50 results for the 400. In fact, his official time in the final was 1:11.97. […]

September 16, 2007   Posted in: Uncategorized  5 Comments

Now it’s your turn: Share your Riccione meet adventures

An Italian student in my wife’s ESL class says Riccione is known as a wild-and-crazy resort where, like Las Vegas, whatever “happens in Riccione, stays in Riccione.” But when it comes to the world masters meet, don’t be shy! Meet results barely scratch the surface, so take advantage of the miracle of email and send […]

September 16, 2007   Posted in: Uncategorized  5 Comments

Daprano, Raschker WRs lead Americans in Riccione finale

Led by the world records of two Atlanta-area athletes, Americans combined for several dozen medals in the final two days of the 17th World Masters Athletics Championships in Riccione, Italy. The meet ended today with the powerful German and British teams claiming many relay medals, but Team USA collected plenty of hardware and also set […]

September 15, 2007   Posted in: Uncategorized  One Comment

Yikes! National Masters News goes for the fool’s gold

The September issue of National Masters News is out, and despite its 44 pages, it has only a handful of ads. A single back-page ad probably accounts for the bulk of its non-subscription revenue this month — a full-color production featuring photos of masters stars Frank Condon, Kathy Jager, Nolan Shaheed and Rick Easley. Yes, […]

September 14, 2007   Posted in: Uncategorized  4 Comments

American thrower finds his own Field of Dreams

This is the most haunting masters track story I’ve ever heard. I’ll let M55 world silver medalist Tom Fahey tell it himself. This is what Tom posted on The Ring after getting back from Riccione worlds: “Ralph (Fruguglietti) was born in Italy and speaks Italian fluently. He was visiting Venice and heard of a training […]

September 13, 2007   Posted in: Uncategorized  Comments Closed

Barrineau wins big jumpoff to claim M50 title at worlds

A dozen years ago, in a dramatic clash of Olympians, Jim Barrineau beat Dwight Stones for the M40 world high jump championship. Yesterday’s M50 event at Riccione might have been even more exciting than the Buffalo showdown. In 1995, Jim won with a jump of 2.11 (6-11). Yesterday, he cleared 1.81 (5-11 1/4) to beat […]

September 13, 2007   Posted in: Uncategorized  2 Comments

Riccione Raschker named USATF Athlete of the Week

Ten years ago, when she was 50, Phil Raschker won an incredible 10 gold medals at the World Masters Athletics Championships in Durban, South Africa. But a decade has slowed her down. She may end up with only eight or nine world titles this year. At age 60, she’s won seven golds at Riccione worlds […]

September 12, 2007   Posted in: Uncategorized  Comments Closed