Alisa Harvey lowers 800 AR, inches closer to the Trials
Alisa Harvey is serious about qualifying for the Olympic Trials at age 42. Friday night at Penn State University, she scorched the 800 in 2:07.08, nipping her own W40 American indoor record of 2:07.23 — set two years ago! Here are complete results. This puts her REALLY close to 2:06.50, the “B” qualifying standard for the Trials. If she gets that mark and is among the top 30 entrants, she’ll run in Eugene. What a kick!
Open lanes at open nationals? Masters events in jeopardy
Will the men’s masters exhibition 60 and women’s 400 at USATF open indoor nationals have empty lanes? That seems to be the worry of Mark Cleary, organizing these races at the AT&T indoor championships Feb. 23-24 in Boston. On Friday, he sent this note to Mary Rosado, who is organizing the masters relays events at Millrose: “Mary, would you please get the word out to these teams that we still need competitors for the Open Indoor National Masters Invitational event–Men’s 60m dash and Women’s 400m all athletes must be at least 40 and the women’s time standard is 65 seconds and the Men’s time standard is 7.33 for 40-49 and 7.36 for 50-59–Thanks.”
Lemme wins Reebok masters mile big in Boston
Kent Lemme, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts cross country coach, won the masters mile at the Reebok indoor games this afternoon in Boston, taking the exhibition event in 4:25.04 — with a nonconservative margin of 6 seconds over the runner-up. A year ago, he took second to Mark Coogan at this meet, clocking 4:28.76.
Report: People can sprint after age 40 — and live!
A little paper in Medford, Massachusetts, has discovered masters track. And it’s amazed that folks as old as 47 (!!!) run sprints. The headline on the story reads: “Kicking it old school: Kountze proves hitting 40 isn’t fatal” Subject of the story is M45 sprinter Michael Kountze, who grew up in Medford but now lives in Nashville. More evidence of wacked editing is when the writer says: ” Kountze sprints in the 45-49 category running about 300 feet (100 meters) in 11.8 seconds. He continues to hold a 25-year-old record best of 10.2 second in the 100-meter dash, set during his senior year at his alma mater, Middlebury College in Vermont.” Don’t get me started. Oh well, at least the sport is in the public eye.
Jeff Hartwig improves M40 vault record to 18-4 1/2
Becca Gillespy of PoleVaultPower.com shares this news: “DORMAGEN (GER, Jan 25): Former World Indoor Champion Tim Lobinger who is known for high number of competitions started his another year in great style. At the begin of his jubilee 15th year on world level he won the Pole Vault meet in Dormagen with clearing respectable 5.76 on first try. And it happened only hours after his return from training camp in South Africa, writes (this article) on www.leichtathletik.de. Home favourite Bjorn Otto was second with 5.70 and tried to win at 5.81. Some 400 spectators saw a tie for third. European U22 fifth placer Tobias Scherbarth (indoor PB) and US vet Jeff Hartwig went over 5.60. With this mark Hartwig again improved his own World Indoor Masters Record.” The previous M40 best was Jeff’s own 5.51.
Reebok masters mile returns this weekend in Boston
Hartshorne deserves its reputation as a masters mile mecca. But every year since 2000, Boston also has hosted some great masters miles at the Reebok Boston Indoor Games. Organized by New England USATF honcho Steve Vaitones, the Reebok masters mile is the first event (at 5:30 p.m.) Saturday at the site of the late-March masters indoor nationals: the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center at Roxbury Community College. Barbara Huebner, director of media relations for the event, tells me: “I sent out press releases to many hometown newspapers of the masters athletes, so we certainly tried to gain publicity for them.” Good for her — and them and us.
Coach Jesse Cummings dies at 90; Corsicana icon
Jesse Cummings of Texas, who competed in masters track from 1987 to about 2000, died Wednesday at 90, his local paper reports. He had an M80 time of 2:05.16 for 400 meters in 2000, which was good enough for world ranking that year. The article also says: “In 1987, he began competing in the Senior Olympics in the 400-meter run, discus, javelin and pole vault, winning numerous medals in those competitions.” M40 sprinter John Simpson writes: “I coached with Jessie Cummings in my first xanax coaching gig. . . . Great guy!”
Targeting the Trials at age 46: Bradstock the javelinist
Roald Bradstock took note of Peter Blank’s retirement from the M45 spear wars. It was the latest favorable news for Roald, whose 71.75 (235-4) throw last May is now listed as the official M45 world age-group record (even though Peter threw 77.15/253-1 nine days later). In any case, Roald is gearing up for 2008. His ultimate goal is competing in his seventh Olympic Trials (spread over the UK and USA). He says he’ll be 46 years and 70 days on the day of competition this June.
James Lofton loses job with the San Diego Chargers
Norv Turner, coach of the San Diego Chargers, didn’t kick his dog when he returned home from Foxboro after losing to the 18-0 New England Patriots on Sunday. He kicked his receivers coach, James Lofton, off the club. Fired him. A stunner, to say the least. NFL Hall of Famer James, who we see running the 400 at SoCal masters meets, was shocked as well, telling The San Diego Union-Tribune: “I don’t have any idea (on the reasons behind the firing). I was stunned. (Norv) just said he was going in a different direction.”
Spearchucker Peter Blank calls it a career in Germany
Peter Blank has hung up his spears. Peter, the M45 world record holder in the javelin, was interviewed recently in Germany about his retirement from the sport after four decades. We also learn that Peter sued German authorities to be included on the 1992 Olympic team in Barcelona. Not sure of the details. He also says that he tried to qualify for last year’s IAAF Osaka world meet at age 45, saying: “I was in the shape of my life, physically, I would throw 90 meters.” Below is another godawful Google translation of a post on the Koops’ Web site.
