The Riccione meet site includes a news page where Italian is translated into a language that resembles English. Compelling stuff. For example on Day 2: “First titles were assigned at the Athletics World Masters in Riccione, Misano and S. Giovanni in Marignano, with all the ‘paparazzi’ chasing René Felton the Andrew Howe mother, who has completed the heptathlon 800 meters, and caught a train back to Rieti.” (Andrew is the Los Angeles-born Italian long jump champion who lost the world title at Osaka on the last jump.) For more on Andrew and Mom, read this account.

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Bob Weiner walks the walk as well as talks the talk. Or rather he runs the run. His latest missive is a little self-indulgent, but what the heck. He deserves the attaboys. Our USATF Masters mediameister writes: “At the National Press Club’s 10th Annual 5K race, which starts and finishes right at the NPC at 14th &F in Washington, we beat some 10 other media teams including McGraw-Hill, Reuters, Business Week, Houston Chronicle, Kiplinger’s, others. Jay Wind organized the 3-person team (and only top 3 count so worked well–some teams had 20 members)—which for us consisted of Jay, me, and a world class Ethiopian runner Jay recruited as our intern (who took second overall!). . . . We had also won last year—so we were called up to podium as defending champions.”

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Tyson Gay runs 9.85 into a 0.5 mps wind at Osaka? Big whoop. Let’s see how he does when he’s 90 in 2072. Betcha he won’t be running 17.53 — the time Frederico Fischer of Brazil clocked today in winning the 100-meter dash at Riccione worlds (his second world age-group record of this meet). Fast Freddie beat the listed M90 WR of 17.83 by American Donald Pellmann in 2005. Poor Don. He lost his M90 shot record to FF earlier in the meet. The top century at Riccione today went to an Italian — again beating an American. Mario Longo upset American record holder Aaron Thigpen 10.96 to 11.07 into a 1.4 mps wind (nearly 4 mph).

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Ruthlyn Greenfield-Webster of Yonkers is stoked about competing in her first world masters championships. And if that isn’t enough motivation, her hometown paper has given her quest a great push. Check out this article. My favorite quote: “This is what she does,” said Christopher Webster, her husband of 11 years. “I’ve come to realize that when it comes to desire to compete, you can put it on the shelf, but you can never get rid of it.” Yeah, baby. You got it. Go, Ruthlyn!

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This just in: Don’t take the Riccione results site as gospel when it comes to who advances to semis or finals. A middle-distance teammate of the Athena Track Club ladies at worlds writes: “The results that are online don’t show the full picture. I had an email from Caren Ware saying that she had qualified for the final of the W45 400 Hurdles and that Terri Cassel had also reached the 800M final in addition to Lorraine Jasper in W45. Neither Caren or Terri have a Q by their name. My guess is that they qualified on time, but not place, and this is not indicated.” Normally, when you qualify by place you get a capital Q by your mark and when advancing by time, you get a lowercase “q.” If this isn’t being done, then lots of folks are being misled.

America lost at least three world records today in Riccione. Frederico Fischer of Brazil, born in 1917, won the M90 shot at Riccione worlds — his 9.64 (about 31-7) mark on the first throw beating American Don Pellman’s listed age-group world record of 9.33 from 2005. In the M95 group, Friedrich Mahlo of Germany, also on his first throw, went 6.93 (about 22-8) — beating the listed WMA record of 6.61 by Trent Lane at Charlotte nationals in 2006. (But at the National Senior Olympics last June in Louisville, Robert Stewart of Virginia threw 6.78 in the M95 shot.) In the W70 triple jump, Christiane Schmalbruch of Germany spanned 8.46 (about 27-9) on her last jump to beat the listed age-group world record of 8.09 by American Audrey Lary in 2004.

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Italy must be reeling. First huge winds strike the coast (including Riccione), then their beloved opera tenor dies. And now I hear that air traffic controllers are on strike! Great timing for folks flying in for the 17th World Masters Athletics Championships. One athlete, stuck in London, just wrote me: “I was scheduled to leave at 8:20 a.m. to Bologna, but the Italian Air Traffic Controllers went on strike! Right now, I’m on standby for a 14:55 flight to Bologna but I may miss the declaration deadline. I’m hearing that the next available flights aren’t til Saturday night. Hope I make this one. I e-mailed (USA team manager) Philip Greenwald and the LOC to let them know my situation. Maybe I’m not the only one with this problem.”

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So the knock on a USA-hosted world masters meet is that folks from some countries would encounter visa problems, right? Well, look out. Italy has its own demons. This story tells how nine Indian masters athletes may miss worlds because of visa issues. The story says: “Madhavan Nair, secretary of State Masters Association, said everything got derailed after the NMAA said that the participants require sponsors to visit Italy on tourist visa. In the last moment this is a difficult task and the participants should get visiting visa for the travel, he said.” Dang it, can’t anyone get on the horn and offer to be sponsors? At Gateshead 1999 worlds, I was told that Russian high jump great Valeri Brumel wanted to compete, but was barred over visa hassles.

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Man, those Italians. While I was cherry-picking masters at Osaka, this Italian site was listing all the over-35 athletes entered at IAAF worlds. One thing I noticed: some possible world age-group records that WMA has overlooked. How many did they find? I count 37 men and 42 women — a total of 79 geezers at Nagai Stadium! (The Italian statman, Filippo Fasolato, didn’t spot the M45 or M50 marathoner from Israel, though.) Perhaps the most impressive record uncovered was Czech decathlete Tomáš Dvorák’s 8020 points on June 20, 2007. That crushed the listed WMA world record of 7778 by Germany’s Werner Von Moltke in 1972 — which may have been age-graded. Tomas’ marks were 11.09/-0.2 – 7.63/2.8 – 16.70 – 1.91 – 50.60 / 14.98/0.8 – 42.22 – 4.60 – 66.56 and 4:49.87. (Tomas once held the open WR.)

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Americans captured four world titles in the decathlon or heptathlon today in Riccione, holding their own against the 900-strong German juggernaut. Team USA gold medalists were M50 Jim Russ, many-time world champ M65 Emil Pawlik, W60 Phil Raschker (who fell short of her June world record by about 120 points) and W70 world record holder Christel Donley. Silvers went to W50 Rita Hanscom and W80 Johnnye Valien (the oldest female heptathlete). Perhaps the top men’s mark was the 8,264 by Germany’s Dr. Rolf Geese, short of his own M60 world record of 8,440 set two years ago at San Sebastian. Germans also went 1-2-3 in the M45 deca, led by Martin Vogel. He topped a field of 46!

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