Gia Lewis-Smallwood bows at London, but her mark beats W35 AR

Gia the AR holder as shown on her IAAF profile.

Gia Lewis-Smallwood, 38, had a bad day at the office. She failed to advance to the discus finals of IAAF London worlds, despite being the American record-holder at 69.17 (226-11), which she did at age 35 in 2014. But now it’s time for my recurring rant. Why isn’t she also the W35 American record-holder? Carol Finsrud is still the listed AR woman, with her 54.52 (178-10) dating to 1992. If Gia’s 69.17 in Angers isn’t kosher, how about her 58.15 (190-9 1/4) Friday at worlds? (The listed W35 WR is 69.60/228-4 by Faina Myelnik.) On Facebook, Gia wrote: “Sometimes you just don’t perform near to your capabilities, that was me today.” How about USATF performing to its potential and listing her latest mark as the AR? Long overdue.

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August 11, 2017

One Response

  1. Peter L. Taylor - August 11, 2017

    Thank you, Ken, for your coverage of Gia, Carol Finsrud, and all the other greats. As soon as her W60 pending American mark in the discus is ratified, Carol will have a clean sweep of six consecutive age groups: ARs in W35, W40, W45, W50, W55, and W60. Is this unprecedented in the history of masters T&F? I do not know.

    The chink in the armor, of course, is that Gia’s W35 mark is better than Carol’s, and thus when writing about Carol for the PR blurb I always have to come up with some awkward language. For Perth, for example, I said “…. although her W35 mark has been surpassed (but not ratified).”

    There is also a big meet going up in Ontario; any ARs or WRs from that competition?

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