Hurdlers notch shuttle record amid crazy winds at Jax nationals
With tailwinds topping 10 mph, sprinters at Jax nationals had a field day Saturday. Records were negated, including a stunning 14.12 by M80 Bobby Whilden Jr. (with the listed WR being Payton Jordan’s 14.35). Bobby won by an incredible 2.5 seconds! But contrary to USATF’s Day 3 news release, W75 Kathy Bergen didn’t set a WR of 15.70. (Her wind was reported as 3.6 mps — nearly twice the allowable. Besides, she had a wind-legal 15.31 at Mt. SAC in April.) Given the crazy air, it’s even more remarkable that hurdlers finished a relay. But the foursome of Anne Sluder, Melanie Blake, Lisa Edwards and Shara Coletta clocked 1:14.60 to become the first W35s to run the event. Hence an American record. Anne dropped down from W40, in fact, a couple days after raising her own AR in the pentathlon to 3746 points (from 3727 in June). We also get late word of a W50 record in the 1500 — claimed late Friday (after a rain delay) by Marisa Sutera Strange at 4:51.86. The listed AR is 4:52.55 by Kathy Martin in 2012. (The listed WR is 4:40.7 by Denmark’s Gitte Karlshöj.)
Your W35 shuttles American record-holders: Melanie, Lisa, Shara and Anne.
Here’s the Day 3 release from USATF:
JACKSONVILLE — Sprinters set the stage for the third day of action at the 2015 USATF Masters Outdoor Championships at Hodges Field on the campus of the University of North Florida.
In the first 100 meters of the day, Kathy Bergen (La Canada, California) continued an impressive weekend, breaking her own world record with a time of 15.70 in the W75-94 100m.
Jane Barnes (Raleigh, North Carolina) was the first runner to go sub-15 as her 14.66 sealed her victory in the W60-64 100m.
Daphne Sluys (Bellingham, Washington) added another title in the W55-59 100m, running away in 13.97. Amanda Scotti (Folsom, California) turned in a runner-up finish of 14.25.
Brandi Bernert (Denver, Colorado) ran the fastest overall time for all women’s age groups, taking the W35-39 100m title in 12.22.
The men’s 100 meters started out in similar fashion as the women with Bobby Whilden (Houston, Texas) crushing the M80-84 field in a windy 14.12 (+4.0).
Charles Allie (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) and Kenrick Smith (Brooklyn, New York) represented the M65-69 division with impressive times of 12.47 and 12.99, respectively.
Alan Tissenbaum (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) was able to hold off Don McGee (Clinton, Maryland) and finish with the win in 11.73 in the M55-59 100m. McGee’s 11.77 was more than enough to finish in second place.
Jeffrey Mack (Clearwater, Florida) ran the fastest overall time of the day coming from the M40-44 division at 10.95.
In the M40-49 discus, Eric Cole (Flower Mound, Texas) threw 45.65m/149-9 on his second throw to come out atop the medal podium, while Jason Lattimore (Morris Plains, New Jersey) and Colin Bastien (Douglasville, Georgia) medaled with throws of 44.84m/147-1 and 40.46m/132-8.75, respectively.
The most experienced competitor in this week’s championship, Champ Goldy (Haddonfield, New Jersey), trotted out for his own 100m time in the M80-99 100m. Goldy ran 31.83 and will still compete in discus, javelin and weight throw as originally announced.
Friday night’s action concluded with the 1500m and 5000m race walks in various age groups. Rain delayed action for the second consecutive day, but all scheduled events were completed.
Marisa Sutera Strange (Pleasant Valley, New York) broke an American record in the W50-54 1500m at 4:51.86. The previous mark was 4:52.6 by Kathryn Martin in 2012.
The W30 1500m was highlighted by the top three runners all going sub-6:00. Meghan DeCarlo (Saddle Brook, New Jersey) ran away from Tamika Newsome (Wilmington, North Carolina) late to win with a time of 5:16.83. Newsome crossed in 5:29.08 with Rebecca Mullen (Wilmington, Delaware) coming in third at 5:56.19.
Sonja Friend-Uhl (Brentwood, Tennessee) continued a dominating weekend of her own, winning the W40 1500m by more than 20 seconds at 4:39.84. Heather Schulz (Orlando, Florida) and Julie Mercado (Springboro, Ohio) had equally impressive times of 5:00.29 and 5:04.29, respectively.
In men’s team scoring, Team Unattached was leading SoCal Track Club, 1337 to 299 points. Just as they should be. And going into the final day, the women’s leader was also Team Unattached.
Go GDIs!
15 Responses
USATF.TV folks, take note. Your M65 100 shows the M60s and the M60 100 shows the M55s. Probably others off as well.
Also, very disappointing that the Results page:
http://finishtiming.trackscoreboard.com/#/results/meet/2015901
provides multi-age group event results (e.g., M60-69 HJ; M30-49 HJ; M40-49 TJ; Relays; M60-69 Pent).
There is no way of determining who won what age groups without backtracking to the start lists.
Don’t we deserve better?
Are you sure? I see the ages on everything.
Response to #3: Is there another set of results? I am referring to the USATF Masters Championship website where the results of multi-age groups are combined.
http://finishtiming.trackscoreboard.com/#/results/meet/2015901
The live results linked to the USATF Masters Championships website do not show ages for the M60-69 Pent:
http://finishtiming.trackscoreboard.com/#/results/meet/2015901/event/323/Final
or the M60-69 High Jump for example:
http://finishtiming.trackscoreboard.com/#/results/meet/2015901/event/253/Final
David, of course they show our ages. Look again: Steve Kemp – 62 Unattached, Patrick Viola – 66 and so on. I followed your link, you must be seeing what I’m seeing!
You do not see what got me pissed off, however. I’m running a small manufacturing operation as part of my business and proudly sell “Made in America”. Turning over my medal from a United States National Championship I cannot help but noticing a blank back except this stamp: ‘China’. XXXX this!
tb and Stefan: O.K. We’re all correct. I checked and the link does show ages in Internet Explorer but the link does NOT show ages in Firefox. So apparently USATF configured their website for Explorer but not other browsers. Mystery solved. Congratulations and thanks to all.
Ken, I tried accessing the link you posted to USATF.TV and saw that there were 222 videos available for viewing. Of the 222, 203 were for various heats and finals of Track events. There were 19 videos available for viewing involving Field events, 17 of which were of the Women’s HJ (14 of those were of Chaunte Lowe). Only 2 of 222 videos were throwing events (both JT). Perhaps they should just rename the site USAT.TV and be done with it. The throwers were the ones who got “F”ed.
Both Safari and Firefox show me the ages in those links.
Agree with Bob Cedrone. Last year at Wake Forest there was the excuse that all the throws (except for shot put) were remote to the track. But at UNF all the throws were either in the infield or immediately adjacent to the track. How difficult was it to give the throwers some love?
The field events announcer was at the site on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. His job was to cover the throws and jumps. The other two announcers (Mr. Dunning and Mr. Taylor) covered track events as well as general announcements. In addition, Mr. Dunning covered some of the high jump, especially Chaunte Lowe, as did Mr. Taylor.
The high jump and pole vault are the easiest field events to cover, as they are dichotomous (make it or miss it). The horizontal jumps and the throws are rather challenging to announce.
Maybe I should clarify some. At USATF Senior and Junior Nationals in Eugene, there was video coverage of the throws. Why not at Masters Nationals? If videos of the runners can be filmed, why not throws and and jumps also?
As much as I agree with the throwers being the Cinderellas of USATF Masters, I can understand the technical issues facing anybody taking videos of throwing events. I think would require editing and compressing events and skilled camera operators to boot.
On a related topic, we had a young lady following us around all day taking a million photos with a super professional camera. Does anybody know what this was all about? Do we get access to the photos? Can we purchase some online?
As I take another look at USATF.TV I see that there are now 245 videos posted. They have added 4 TJ videos as well as 19 more JT videos. Maybe there are even more coming? Also, to Stefan Waltermann’s point, I have always said that the Race Walkers were the red-headed step-children of Masters Track & Field, not the throwers. But I see that even they have both the 5000 meter Racewalk and the 10,000 meter Racewalk on the website for video viewing!
well, well! I thought I recognized Mr. Peter Taylor’s voice during the track events but I had understood he was not going to be present. Nice to know that my ears were correct! It was a horrendously busy event for announcers. Good job by all.
Yes, Louise, I announced you in the 100, 200, and 400. You were tremendous in the 200, and I later praised you as a “great strategist,” or some such. Why? I think you were third with 10 meters to go but still got up in time. The 400 was a struggle for you, but you won it.
Veteran track announcer Tony Dunning announced about 45% of the track events, and I handled about 55% (crude estimate).
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