Mike Travers, chair of the site selection committee for USATF masters track, reports on the possible bidders for 2014 USATF indoor and outdoor masters nationals: “2014 Indoors: Boston, MA; Gainesville, FL. 2014 Outdoors: Bloomington, IN; Winston/Salem/Wake Forest, NC; Norfolk, VA; Savannah, GA; Tulsa, OK; and Joplin, MO.” Mike also writes: “Tentative list. I expect some to drop out.” Gainesville for indoors would be very interesting. The meet would probably be at the site of the Jimmy Carnes Invitational at the O’Connell Center of the University of Florida. It has a flat, six-lane track, which Track & Field News called: “One of the finest indoor track facilities in the world, and perhaps the fastest track in the world for long sprints.” Missouri Southern State University in Joplin (notable for May 2011 tornado devastation) would be the Joplin bidder, I’ll guess. Delegates meeting later this month in St. Louis will choose the winners.

Last Friday, while I was snoozing, USATF named W55 roadie Christine Kennedy as USATF Masters Athlete of the Year. Wait, didn’t we just hear that Nolan Shaheed, Johnnye Valien and Flo Meiler won the top awards? Yes, but the powers-that-be (masters track chair Gary Snyder, masters LDR chair Don Lein and maybe others) apparently got together to pick the top over-35 athlete in USA Track and Field, and it was the asphalt huggers’ turn for the honor. So we’ll probably get the tiptop award again in 2012. Just the way things go. Congrats, Christine!

Johnny Valien — recently crowned USATF Masters Athlete of the Year along with Flo Meiler — was further honored Saturday night at an Irvine, California, banquet room by her club of many years, the Southern California Striders. She won the club’s first Lifetime Achievement Award as a W85 superstar in pretty much every event. Watching the awards ceremonies, which included Damien Leake winning the club’s 2011 Athlete of the Year Award, was Danny Harris, legendary teen Olympic silver medalist in the 1984 Games, finishing behind Edwin Moses and later the 400-meter hurdler who ended Edwin’s historic 122-race winning streak. But Danny hasn’t run in decades.

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Steve Robbins, our M65 world sprint champ, was profiled the other day on his local Cleveland CBS station. Most of the segment was the usual oh-my-god-this-guy-is-fast-for-a-geezer tripe. That’s fine. All publicity is good. But then the reporter does something creative. He grabs three college kids playing Frisbee and says: Hey, would you race this 68-year-old guy over here? Of course, they say yeah. Then Steve smokes them on the infield grass. What a hoot. But will the kids and their tender egos survive?

I’m not making this up. It’s on the Web, so it has to be true! Right? In a profile of a 33-year-old lady football player, the Telegraph-Journal newspaper in Canada says: “Besides the community support, Harlow said one of the deciding factors for the selection committee rested with the tournament’s planned venue: the refurbished Canada Games Stadium. Officials called it top notch. That isn’t a surprise since it will play host to another international sporting event: the 2012 World Masters Track and Field championships, from Aug. 9 to 12.” You heard it here first! Wonder if WMA has. (OK, here’s the poop: The paper got confused. The meet is just a regional championships. We reported on this last December.)

Bendigo, a town in southeast Australia, doesn’t have the profile of a Sydney or Brisbane, but it’s the host of the 2014 Oceania Masters Championships, a regional WMA meet. The announcement was made a couple days ago in the local newspaper. See it here. “The championships were last held in Papeete, Tahiti, in 2010 and will go to Tauranga in New Zealand’s North Island in February next year where Athletics Bendigo representatives will promote the Bendigo championships,” Athletics Bendigo president Craig Burnett was quoted as saying. Bendigo’s La Trobe University Athletics Complex will host all of the stadia events, we learn. The last time Oz hosted Oceania was 2008, in Townsville.

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Mary Trotto of the USATF Masters Awards Committee has announced the top masters track athletes of 2011: M60 middle-distancer Nolan Shaheed for men and W75 multi-eventers Flo Meiler (W75) Johnnye Valien (W85) for women. All great choices in an exceptionally amazing year for Americans, including Willie Gault in the sprints, Ralph Maxwell in the vault and hurdles and Neni Lewis in the throws. Mary’s committee couldn’t break a tie in the women’s award, so they gave it to the top vote-getters. Nolan had an amazing run at records this year, documented widely on this blog.

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Earl Fee — he of the world records in long sprints, middle distances and hurdles — is a gentleman, a scholar — and a sex machine? His latest book, One Hundred Years Young the Natural Way, distills years of study in track and training and includes Chapter 30. It’s an eye-opener for honesty and courage. He talks sex. Even his own experience. In Tantric Sex, he writes in a summary chapter: “This is a subject that is becoming more and more popular in Western countries. No doubt many readers would turn to this chapter first and will not be disappointed. Also, see my new simple exercise to improve prostate health, to improve your sex life, and that may help prevent prostate cancer.” His two editions of The Complete Guide to Running: How to be a Champion from 9 to 90 was wonderful.

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OK, this is totally gratuitous. But I can’t help but hail my wife’s photos of Barack and Michelle Obama (aka POTUS and FLOTUS). She was covering their arrival yesterday at North Island Naval Station near San Diego for the Carrier Classic basketball game on the USS Carl Vinson (the “Mission Accomplished” ship of Bush fame, where the crew threw Osama Bin Laden’s body overboard). Chris Stone (aka world masters sprinter) was shooting for Patch sites in Coronado and elsewhere. She didn’t have a credential to shoot the game itself, but she shot the practice on Thursday. See her photos here. She shot Obama a few months ago, too.

Becca Gillespy Peter, the masters-friendly guru of polevaultpower.com, has written a note warning that “USATF, out of nowhere, decided they are going to enforce the IAAF Uniform Guidelines at Club Nationals. This was done without consultation or approval from the Club Council or the LOC. Initially this was going to apply to the masters athletes as well, but it was negotiated to only apply it to the open athletes. So masters athletes only need to worry that their jersey matches their teammate, they don’t need to worry about logo size and placement. However, there is no guarantee that you are safe in the future. USATF appears to be able to just arbitrarily make decisions like this without any concern for the USATF Rule Book, their own bylaws, or any input from the affected parties.”

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