Germany’s Klaus Liedtke, a notorious drug cheat by all accounts, has emerged from a two-year doping suspension and, uh oh, set another world record in the shot, according to the Koops’ Web site. That gives him four age-group records in a row (M50, M55, M60 and now M65). But he’s not being greeted with welcome arms, according to Stefan Waltermann, who translated the news for me and added his own comments. Stefan writes: “Liedtke truly must be an idiot.”

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Joy Upshaw-Margerum graciously sends along the PDF entry form for the USATF West Regional Masters Championships, set July 21-22 at Occidental College near Los Angeles. Oxy, as it’s known, once was a track powerhouse. (Check out their Hall of Fame and all-time bests featuring some current masters stars.) The current track, refurbished in 2001, is a beauty, laid out for track events with very wide curves. Great for sprinters in the 2 and 4.

Before broadcasting, coaching and other ventures began cutting into his time, Dwight Stones was an active masters high jumper. His duel with Jim Barrineau at the 1995 Buffalo worlds is the stuff of legend. (He lost.) Now he’s found another way to avoid high jumping — his own radio show. Little known fact about him (and me): In the mid-1980s, shortly after he jumped in the Los Angeles Olympics, I wrote him a letter offering to ghostwrite his track memoirs. He was hot, articulate and had plenty of dirty laundry to air. He also had an ego THIS big. He replied to my note: “Thanks, but I plan to write my own memoirs.” So far, zip. Oh well. We tried.

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Masters coach and athlete Ross Dunton displays his courage — and sense of humor — in his latest update on his Alzheimer’s disease. In his current newsletter, Ross writes: “I am sharing this with you so that you will have a better understanding of how my Alzheimer’s is progressing, not so that you will feel sorry for me — perhaps they will in Orono and give me a head start. I have not told my son and daughter about having Alzheimer’s because they have their own problems to worry about. They will be told before my memory/actions deteriorate too much.”

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Event organizer Dave Clingan has shared a report on Saturday’s Fountain of Youth Masters Mile in Canby, Oregon. He also posted photos of the mile, which included Henry Rono from New Mexico and a record-breaking performance by fellow M55 Nolan Shaheed of Pasadena. Dave writes: “To make (Nolan’s) accomplishment even more impressive, Shaheed had to catch an early morning flight from Washington DC to fly into Portland about two hours before his race. An accomplished trumpet player, he had a Friday evening performance at the Kennedy Center the night before.”

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Sandy Pashkin of the Oregon Track Club Masters tonight posted results for Saturday and Sunday’s Hayward Masters Classic. She’s been a busy bee of late, since the USATF masters records pages also have been updated (as of today). Among the records noted as (p) for pending: John Altendorf’s 4.00 M60 vault Sunday at Eugene. (And here’s a video of his vault.) Quite a few other 2007 marks are listed as pending, as well as John Keston’s 2005 M80 mile record — the source of much consternation. In the Hayward results, check out marks by 88-year-old Canadian Olga Kotelko. She won 11 (eleven!) golds.

Yet another record is apparent from the Bob Boal Southeastern Masters meet results. We learn from fellow spearchucker Chuck Greene: “Arne-Roald Bradstock, member of Great Britain’s 1984 and 1988 Olympic teams — more recently a U.S. citizen — launched the 800-gram javelin 68.80 (225-9) at the Southeastern meet in Durham, North Carolina, on May 4.” The listed M45 American Record is 67.55 (221-7) by Mike Brown in 1999. Arne, a former SMU track star, lives in Atlanta and turned 45 just a few weeks ago.

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According to the Koops’ masters site, Germans wanting to enter the Riccione worlds in September may be up a creek without a beer stein. “They are acting goofy over there,” writes one of my German-speaking friends. “Set their own deadline on May 31 while the WMA deadline is May 31 as well. If they go through with it, ALL Germans are going to miss the deadline. By the way, in the past, WMA had an extended deadline against extra pay, of course. Not this time around. Pretty funny. I’m sure they will work something out. A world championship without the Germans would be like Oktoberfest without Lederhosen.”

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Well, yeah. Those were Sly Stallone’s real muscles in “Rocky Balboa,” which I gave a glowing review. But had Steroid Stallone been drug-tested after making his masters boxing movie, he would have been banned for three or four lifetimes. Now we learn he was mainlining human growth hormone, which for most athletes is, like, kind of illegal. But he apologized to the Aussie court that nailed him. OK, all is forgiven.

Willie Gault celebrated his company’s recent sale of a part of Aloha Airlines to United by running 100 meters in 10.89 seconds Saturday at the same Oxy Invitational where Jim Sorensen ran his M40 AR in the 800. The wind on Willie’s race was a legal 1.2 meters per second. Willie ran 10.72 last year in Indy. But he’s getting closer. Also: Richard Holmes, who turns 40 sometime this year, clocked a legal 15.14 in the 110 hurdles (probably the 42-inch kind) at Oxy. Pretty swift.

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