Clock starts! When will the M35 records for 100 meters be updated?
The August 1980 issue of National Masters News carried this buried item on page 3: “Bill Seldon reports that on June 14 Ruben Whitney of San Antonio, Texas, tied the 35-39 world mark for the 100. Whitney’s 10.3 would break the existing American mark of 10.4. set by Mel Pender in 1973. It would tie the global best time set by Ed Jefferis of South Africa in 1971. National Records Chairman Pete Mundle is verifying the mark. Whitney ran 10.7 in Philadelphia (at AAU masters nationals at Penn) with what appeared to be a heavily taped hamstring.” Hey, Ruben. Someone broke your American record Saturday! Of course, I noted as early as 2006 that Ruben’s 10.3 was bettered by assorted M35s, including Jeff Laynes, Dennis Lewis, Kevin Braunskill and a cat named Carl Lewis. So thanks, Justin. Assuming you pass doping control and your birth certificate isn’t fake, your 9.92 at London IAAF worlds in the 100-meter final Saturday should be listed as the M35 American and world record. That beats Ruben’s 10.3, probably hand-timed, and all the others that never got AR recognition. The listed M35 WR is 9.96 by Kim Collins in 2014. Now let’s see how soon Jeff Brower and Sandy Pashkin reflect the Gatlin 9.92 on their lists. At least mark the mark as pending, ladies and gents.
4 Responses
How did Gatlin end up in lane 8 for the finals ?? I missed the semi’s.
Records don’t get approved until the December Convention. Then there is a waiting period before it gets uploaded on the USATF website.
A too slow proces in the digital era.
USATF has the option of denoting any mark as pending.
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