When I learned that four-time Olympian Jay Silvester had broken the M70 American record in the discus, I was thrilled. So I blogged the news immediately. As the self-appointed masters blabbermouth, I also posted the news on the Track & Field News message board and sent the USATF press office in Indy a heads up. Then this reply came from USATF’s Vicky Oddi: “Masters results being what they are, we need to have everything confirmed before I can send out the release. After HWSG posts the results, we’ll move it.” All I wanted was a brief mention in USATF’s News & Notes press release. Soon, I learned why: USATF didn’t consider the info from the meet reliable. So without trying to confirm Jay’s mark, they just ignored it. That led to some tense back-and-forth over the blackout.

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Kenny Dennis — a short, softspoken sprinter from Los Angeles — is a local legend with tall worldwide stature. He’s a one-time M50 world record holder in the 200 (22.9) who claimed several WAVA sprint titles in the late 1980s. But to his many friends in SoCal, he’s just a reliable fixture at masters meets who quietly shows up, warms up and blasts out of the starting blocks. Lately, he’s been absent from the masters circuit. His last outings were in 2005. Yesterday, I learned his status. He’s recovering at home from double-bypass heart surgery. The good news, however, is that he told his old friend Doug Smith that he plans to compete in 2008. He’ll be 71 in May 2008.

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The USATF national masters 5K cross country championships were held yesterday in Saratoga Springs, New York. Lots of masters tracksters use this event to spice up their winter training. But I can’t tell you who won — or which teams prevailed. The results aren’t online yet. The races ended almost 15 hours ago. This, of course, is completely unacceptable. I’ve written to several USATF officials expressing my disappointment in the delayed results. USATF wouldn’t be allowed to get away with this tardy reporting if it were an open race. Why should masters have to put up with this nonsense?

Bill Collins has lent his name to the Vaterstettener Declaration, an anti-doping pledge big in Germany. His signature, “done in the presence of Guido Müller, the world’s Senior Athletes of the Year 2004 and author of the Vaterstettener statement,” represents “a major step towards a clean and fair sport in the movement of the Senior Athletics,” reports Annette’s Seite. Other signatories at Riccione included Vesa Lappalainen, the Eurovets veep, Dr. Stephen Peters of Britain, the M50 sprint world record holder; and Charles Desjardins, a longtime anti-doping crusader in the United States.

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Remember Robert Madrazo’s attempt at pulling a Rosie Ruiz at the Berlin Marathon? Many stories credited a photographer named Victor Sailer for outing the former Mexican presidential candidate as a course-cutting cheat. Truth be told, a masters track expert in Germany was the first to inform marathon authorities. Robert Koop, a lawyer who helps his masters champion runner wife Annette maintain a masters track Web site, confims that he and Annette fingered Madrazo originally. Robert writes: “We sent our questions to the organisers on Oct. 3rd which is our 4th of July. No one was working on that day. And there was no answer for 48 hours . That is when we sent a reminder on Friday morning the 5th. One hour later we got this answer by the race director of Berlin-Marathon Mark Milde.”

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World Masters Athletics conducts drug tests of a few dozen athletes at its world championships, and the 2007 affair in Riccione was no exception. Lately, stories have circulated that American M40 hurdle champion David Ashford made a comical effort to avoid testing. But the official bottom line is that his test — and all other tests at Riccione — came up negative. Here’s a note I just received from Stan Perkins of Australia, chairman of WMA’s Anti-Doping and Medical Committee: “In respect of the WMA Stadia Championships held in Riccione, Italy, I can advise that the testing program was completed in every respect by the testing authorities. I do not reveal the details of individual athletes who were selected for testing but can report that I was advised that one athlete selected for testing received medical treatment before undertaking his doping test.”

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Complete results of the Huntsman World Senior Games have arrived, thanks to National Masters News editor Carmel Papworth-Barnum (who forwarded me a file), and the stunning news isn’t the six national age-group records and 37 meet records set at St. George, Utah, this week. It’s the return to competition of Hall of Famer Jay Silvester of Lindon, Utah — the 1972 Olympic silver medalist and former world record holder in the discus. Jay turned 70 in late August, and his M70 debut was huge: a throw of 50.27 with the 1-kilo disc. That’s nearly 165 feet! (The Age-Graded Tables says that’s equivalent to an age 20-30 throw of 233 feet!)

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Terry Cannon of Oregon (and formerly San Diego) set an American age-group record in the vault Saturday in Santa Barbara, according to just-released results from the annual Club West masters meet at UC Santa Barbara. (See below.) Terry went 3.20 (10-6) to top the 3.16 (10-4 1/4) mark by legendary Boo Morcom in 1992. (The listed world record for M70 is 3.31 or 10-10 1/4 by Britain’s Robert Brown in 2002.) Earlier this season, as an M65, Terry went 3.45 (11-3 3/4). So he has plenty of potential to jump higher. At Orono, Terry won the M65 vault title at 3.20 (10-06). A 3.20 at age 70 is the age-graded equivalent of a 5.69 jump at ages 20-30 — 18-8. Nice job, Terry!

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Andy Hecker in Southern California reports the cancellation of a major masters meet at Long Beach State University only 10 days away. Andy writes: “I got a call from (meet director) Bigalita (Egger) telling me of her intent to cancel the Self Transcendence meet October 21. . . . I attempted to step in to rescue the meet.” But Bigalita, grief-stricken along with others who helped run the meet, declined the offer. The meet was canceled due to the death of Sri Chinmoy , the athlete-friendly spiritual leader who founded this and other events. Sri Chinmoy attended the Long Beach meet at least once in the mid-1990s. (I met him.) Bigalita promised she’ll send refunds to pre-entrants. The traditional season-ending meet, known for its colorful T-shirts with quirky Sri Chinmoy quotations on the back, also was canceled around 2005. It will return in 2008, Bigalita says.

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M50 sprinter Tom Phillips took a gazillion pictures at Riccione, mainly of the UK folks. But after organizing his galleries, he realized he had enough shots (about 270) to carve out a separate gallery of American athletes. I see shots of Bill Collins, Marty Krulee, Val Barnwell, Pat Peterson, Phil Raschker. Bill Melville, Mel Larsen, Bob Lida, Steve Robbins, Larry Barnum, Sumi Onodera-Leonard and many others. Tom writes: “Although my main job in Riccione, when not racing, was to get a load of pictures of the GB team, I’ve had some kind things said about my Riccione pictures from athletes and friends on the USA side of the pond. As a result, I have put a gallery on my website that contains about 300 photos of members of the USA team.”

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