Dieter Massin (below) is the poster boy for masters
track in Germany — literally. A national campaign to get Germans off
their tushies is under way, with this video-rich website touting Dieter, who’s known more as an official and Eurovets leader than an athlete. Stefan Waltermann reports on the old country: “This is an interesting story that has been all over the German media. The website you are pointing to is the official website of the German Department of Families, Seniors, Women & Youth. . . . They are running a very large campaign in Germany, allocating huge amounts of Euros to promote an active lifestyle for folks over the age of 50.”

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By day, M40 Ron Lee of Santa Margarita, California (in south Orange County) is a mild-mannered accountant. But come late afternoon, he morphs into a . . . mild-mannered high jump coach.  But what a coach! I’ve already written about Ron and his supersoph flopper Harrison Steed (last year) at J. Serra High School in San Juan Capistrano. Now I’m excited about his new club — high jumpers only — and his plans to unveil a new book on the high jump this year. He calls the group USA High Jump Club, and membership isn’t cheap ($100 a month for most). But he knows his stuff, and at Oregon State he jumped his PR of 7-2 in 1985. Not too shabby. Nearing 45, he’s still close to a 6-foot jumper.  I wrote him the other day to get details on club and book. 

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In February 1996, I started a site on AOL called the Masters Track & Field Home Page. I had no idea of its reach until that summer, when I was waiting in line to use a pay phone (young’ns, you can Google the term) at the Atlanta Olympic stadium. I got into a chat with the guy behind me. I told him about my site, and he nonchalantly replied: “Oh yeah, I’ve been there.” And the guy was from England! Wow!  That was only the first of many OMG moments. Another came tonight, when I was checking my traffic.  My hit counter says 101,000 unique users returned to this site in 2008. Heck, that’s like the L.A. Coliseum with people overflowing the upper rows! Enough throat-clearing. I’m here to thank y’all for visiting this site as it nears teenager status, and this blog, launched Jan. 5, 2003, on a whim. Dave Clingan, my webmaster partner, made a huge contribution by merging his rankings site with mine in late 1999 and urging me to register the domain name masterstrack.com. The rest is history.

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The horrid economy is punishing masters as well. Latest example is a decision to suspend the Senior Olympics in New York state. According to this press release, “the annual Senior Games, and all Masters, and Open competitions in the Winter and Summer Games, will be suspended for the 2009-10 fiscal year.”  Drat.  Not sure how this affects smaller Senior Olympics in the state. 

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Talk about masters moles!  In a couple weeks, the First Grandma will  take up occupancy at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. And can you dig it — Marian Robinson (Michelle Obama’s momma) was an Illinois Senior Olympics sprint champ. At least that’s what she claims. But did she really run the 50- and 100-yard dashes, as a gazillion news accounts contend (including this one in The New York Times)? Not sure why she’d be running yards, but that’s what she tells folks. I’m checking out her real stats. Sadly, she says she’s done with sprinting, and she’s only 71. But maybe she’ll get back in shape chasing those adorable granddaughters around the Rose Garden.

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M55 multi-eventer Dave Ortman of Seattle is probably buried under 5 feet of snow about now, but a few days ago he sent me a series of cool poems with a masters track theme. Short poems. Dave writes: “Ernest Hemingway once wrote: ‘For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.’  He
proved that an entire story can be told using as little as six words.  Since
then, others have had a stab at six-word stories.  I received a book recently ‘Six-word Memoirs on Love &  Heartbreak’ edited by Smith Magazine.  Examples
include: ‘Lazy mornings, Sunday Times, Then: kids.’  ‘Married for sex;
divorced for politics.’  ‘Tried men. Tried women. Like cats.’  So why not
Six-word stories on track and field?”  (And again I apologize for the comment system being broken! It’s being worked on.)

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The European Veterans Athletic Association says: “EVAA  website has changed. From January 1, 2009, EVAA has a new website: www.evaa.ch. Please be so kind and have a look at this website from this day on. www.evaa.nu ends on January 19, 2009. Good bye, see you at our new website and thanks a lot for your understanding.” I especially like the new  reports section. The best report is by statman and site co-founder Ivar Soderlind of Sweden. Ivar notes: “As I have declared since 1988, when I began to compile the European Veteran Records, and contrary to popular thought, my experience is and also to a certain extent research shows that older athletes compete for reasons that go well beyond fitness and that this group of older athletes also are very interested in performance parameters — results, best performance, records etc. My experience is that the interest even has increased the latest years.”

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World record holder Jackie Joyner-Kersee is 46 and in pretty good shape, she tells Track & Field News.  So in  the interview, Phil Minshull wisely asks the obvious question: Have you ever been tempted to do some Masters competitions? JJK replied: “[laughing] I haven’t had the urge to get back into competition. Some of my friends, and my husband (Bob) as well, say, ‘Why don’t you do the Masters,’ but, you know, if I did that then I’d want to train as well so that I could do the best I could. But if I did that then I’d want to do just short intervals, absolutely nothing for the 800m. I guess that’s the issue. However, when I’m demonstrating things I have to be fit to be able to do the movements and I’m happy running, say 1K. I haven’t got as far as 3K yet. One day I’d like to do 5K but that’ll be a challenge.”  It’s revealing that husband Bob Kersee has been putting a bug in his wife’s ear about masters. Shows how far we’ve come. 

A masters mole writes me: “I am not sure if anyone has noticed a major scheduling conflict that USATF has regarding two national championship meets. USATF has scheduled the Masters and Club National Championships over the same time frame this year. For those of us master runners who have participated in both events in the past, we are extremely disappointed that we must choose. The Club Championship will be back in New York at the Ichan Stadium — a phenomenal venue that attracts anyone that can qualify to compete. It’s unfortunate that  USATF did not consider this conflict in their planning…. or maybe they did!”  Well, mole — here’s the deal: The Oshkosh nationals and two-day club nationals are the same weekend in mid-July because Lahti worlds is where masters nationals are generally held — the first week of August. So don’t blame USATF.  Well, not completely. It’s a bummer that clubbers have to miss one. But it’s rare that this convergence occurs. Also keep in mind that Oshkosh stepped in to bail out Clermont, Florida. Beggers can’t be choosers.

Over the weekend, masters were in the mix at the annual Pole Vault Summit at a rodeo arena in Reno, Nevada. Official results for all events haven’t been posted. But images of results sheets are online now. Dyestat posted a bunch of results. But I used Photoshop to make the masters results easier to read. (See below.) Ages aren’t given, and masters women competed with some open women. But you’ll recognize some of our friends. M45 Paul Sinatra had the best masters jump at 4.60 meters (15-1).

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