Meet maven Charles Fay writes from Upstate New York: âAttention Masters Runners: 2016 has arrived and we hope your training is going well in preparation for the 49th Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile coming up on January 23 at Barton Hall in Ithaca, NY. This is the final call for entries. Use this link to register online. REGISTRATION CLOSES AT MIDNIGHT JANUARY 9. Remember that registration is a two-step process. First register online and then mail your entry and/or banquet fee to Charlie Fay (complete instructions and mailing address at the link above). You are not officially entered in the race until your payment is received and youâve gotten an email acknowledgement from Charlie. ⊠The 2016 Hartshorne Masters Mile will field national and international masters runners and promises to be one for the record books! We hope to see you at the start line as well as the post-race dinner and awards banquet.â
A great finish from 2010: Nick Berra (left) nips Tracy Lokken in M40 mile.
A masters hurdler who won gold, silver and bronze at Lyon worlds went undercover in that now infamous Al Jazeera report that basically accuses NFL QB Peyton Manning of doping with HGH. One of my readers brought to my attention the story of Liam Collins, who âspent six months undercover investigating the murky world of performance-enhancing drugs. ⊠âFor me, it was an opportunity to be the guy, to go undercover, and make a change,â said Collins. At 37, he competes as a hurdler at an international level. For the investigation he claimed that he was making one last push for the Rio Olympics and was willing to do âwhatever it takes to get there.â â In comment below, Liam confirms he didnât take any of the drugs he got. But he did well at Lyon, taking M35 silver in the 400s and bronze in the 110s. (Also gold in the 1600 relay.) See the documentary here.
Liam went undercover for investigation but was fully clothed at worlds.
What the fork? According to a New Yearâs Eve report by The Sunday Times of Colombo, âThe Masters Athletics Sri Lanka, the only association in the country accredited to World and Asia Masters Athletics Association, will conduct a Selection Meet at Diyagama Mahinda Rajapaksa Stadium on February 27 and 28 to select the Sri Lanka team which [will] participate [in] the Asia Masters Athletic Tournamentin Singapore from May 5 to 8 in 2016.â So the Sri Lankans didnât get the memo? Masters donât need to qualify for WMA-sanctioned meets. âNo Master shall be refused entry or participation on ground of race, religion, politics, nationality or place of residence,â says this version of the Asian Masters Athletics Constitution. In other words, if you belong to a recognized affiliate, you can enter Asian regionals. No qualifying meet needed. Sri Lanka pulled the same stunt before Lyon. How do they get away with this?
I get letters. A week ago, one said: âI cannot find a schedule for the Albuquerque Indoors in March. Do you know if the LOC has posted a schedule yet?â Nope, and Iâve been trying. TheUSATF portal for the March 4-6 event doesnât say. The meet contact page is naked. The Local Organizing Committee link goes to a tourism site. I wrote to New Mexico USATF a few weeks ago and got no response. So here we go again. No sked means a chance for fewer entries. Who will veer off the tracks at the last minute? âKinda hard to plan travel, etc., without a schedule!â a friend writes.
As of New Yearâs Day, athletes get no help on who to contact for information.
Late owner Randy Sturgeon, introduced in December 2006, granted us permission to post every NMN through end of 2006.
Thanks to funding from the USATF Masters T&F Committee, our historical archive has grown. On New Yearâs Eve, I uploaded five yearsâ worth of National Masters News to mastershistory.org. Some 316 issues are now online â every edition of every year through 2006 except 2003 and 2004 (which I misplaced from the Al Sheahen Collection). Sorry. In 2016, the missing years will go online. As always, every PDF is searchable, which means you can use Google to find yourself and friends. (Tip: Type site:mastershistory.org âYour Nameâ into Google.) Our budget also will pay for the scanning of photos that trace to the beginnings of our sport, including thousands that appeared in NMN. These photos will be high-resolution â available for anyone to fetch and print. Happy new year, yâall! Enjoy these papers.
Phil at Lisle nationals. Photo by Jerry Bookin-Weiner
In our final Hall of Fame interview, we highlight Phil Brusca and one of his fans â Olympic discus medalist Richard Cochran (bronze in 1960). First, Dick: âCoach Phil Brusca has, and still is, a major positive factor in my athletic life. Throughout my high school years, Coach Brusca was the driving force behind what ever athletic endeavors I attempted. His quiet and personal interest in his athletes pushed each of them to try harder and push themselves further than they thought possible. He constantly guided them in both athletics and in becoming a better person. I know of no athlete he mentored who did not come away from contact with Coach Brusca with a better view of themselves and of the sport or activity they were involved in.â
Piotr is a professional climber on vertical circuit.
China Daily reports that an international association has been established in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, to oversee a new running sport: the vertical marathon. (Check out towerrunning.com) âRunning the stairs of a very tall building was originated in the U.S.,â weâre told. âIt has become an actual sport and according to organizers of the 2015 Asia Pacific International Vertical Marathon, itâs been growing in popularity amongst active Chinese. The Asia-Pacific Vertical Marathon Association is a joint organization between organizers of the vertical racing event of China, Singapore, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The six-month event attracting more than 500 domestic and international runners concluded on Saturday in Guangzhou. Runners competed in the Canton Tower, a symbolic 111-floor high building with 2,580 stairs in Guangzhou.â Polandâs Piotr Lobodzinski and Australian Brooke Logan won titles. Hey, we can do that!
Jeff Watryâs alter ego isDecamouse. But donât think for a minute his efforts are tiny. Jeff roars as the longtime organizer of indoor masters multi-event (combined event) nationals. So it was great to learn he was honored recently by induction into the USATF Masters Hall of Fame. Like Rex Harvey before him, Jeff is a standout decathlete (whom I met as a high jumper at 1995 East Lansing nationals in the M40 group at midfield apron at Michigan State.) Heâs already gearing up for2016 indoor hep nationals in late January at Carthage College in his native Wisconsin. Jeff used to work as an engineer for Gill, and he gave me a great thrill by assigning me to take pictures of a javelin cannon testing spears at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista. I got to eat in their world-class cafeteria.
Masters Hall of Famer Tom Langenfeld continued his march through the record books this month when he raised the American M80 indoor record in the high jump to 1.30 meters (4-3 1/4), clearing on his first try. He had three misses at 1.35 (4-5), which would have tied the listed indoor WR by Finlandâs Samuel Korpi in 2010. Tom now holds the M70, M75 and M80 bests. He crushed the listed AR of 1.22 (4-0) by Ray Propst in 2009. The new AR came Dec. 19 at a USATF meet in Minnesota. (See results here.) A 2008 story credited Tom with 28 national titles. Hereâs a video of Tom straddling in 2012:
Ken has followed track as an athlete, writer and web-master since the late 1960s, and saw most sessions of track and field at the 1984 Los Angeles and 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He also attended the 1988, 1992, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 Trials, the last three as a blogger and Patch correspondent. [More...]
