Samuelson kicks off nationals with American record in 3000

W50 Joan Benoit Samuelson, the 1984 Olympic marathon champ, set an American indoor record for the 3,000 today on Day 1 of the USATF Masters Indoor National Championships at Landover, Maryland. Running solo in her age group, she returned to masters nationals for the first time since 2004 and clocked a 10:22.68, edging the listed AR of 10:23.84 by Kathryn Martin at the 2004 Boston nationals. Results are being posted here. Kathryn easily won the W55 race in 10:59.36, about 24 seconds off her own age-group AR. The top men’s effort so far appears to be 9:16.42 by Craig Fram in the M50 race — but well off Nolan Shaheed’s 8:54.73 indoor mark from 2001. News of Joan’s record already has hit the PR Newswire.


Results are being posted as they arrive, we hear.

Event 102  W50 3000 Meter Run Bob Fine Mem
================================================================================
    Name                     Age Team                    Seed     Finals  Points
================================================================================
  1 Joan Samuelson           W51 Unattached,Freeport 10:05.00   10:22.68    8   
  2 Debbie Lee               W52 So Cal Track,Trabuc 12:10.00   12:25.90    6   
  3 Margot Sheehan           W50 Nike Central,New Yo 12:15.00   12:35.68    4   
  4 *Katherine Willis        W50 Canada,Cambridge    13:00.00   13:06.22  
  5 Karen Lein               W50 Liberty Athl,Newton 14:58.00   14:24.14    3   
 — *Lourdes Fernandes       W50 Brasil,Ouro Preto   11:18.52         DQ  
 

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March 20, 2009

3 Responses

  1. Jerry Bookin-Weiner - March 21, 2009

    Actually the National Indoor Championships were kicked off at 7:30 yesterday morning when Bob Ward of Dallas, Texas broke the American and World records in the M75 Weight Throw
    Event 849 M75 Weight Throw
    =================================================================================
    Name Age Team Finals Points
    =================================================================================
    1 Bob Ward M75 Unattached,Dallas, 16.85m 55-03.50 8
    2 Edgar Holmes M75 Unattached,Mendon, 13.87m 45-06.25 6
    3 Pay Carstensen M77 Florida Athl,Spring 12.41m 40-08.75 4
    4 Wayne Sabin M75 Oregon Track,Milwau 11.11m 36-05.50 3
    5 Ray Feick M77 Philadelphia,Gilber 10.43m 34-02.75 2
    6 Darrell Dempster M79 Unattached,Annapoli 8.00m 26-03.00 1
    In the very next flight, George Mathews of Hayden Lake, ID broke the American record in the M65 Weight Throw:
    Event 848 M65 Weight Throw
    =================================================================================
    Name Age Team Finals Points
    =================================================================================
    1 George Mathews M65 Unattached,Hayden L 19.11m 62-08.50 8
    2 Robert Cahners M66 Florida Athl,Naples 16.62m 54-06.50 6
    3 Michael Valle M68 Unattached,Hillsbor 15.51m 50-10.75 4
    4 David Marovich M65 Philadelphia,Chalfo 12.85m 42-02.00 3
    5 Larry Rheams M66 Unattached,Eureka, 12.67m 41-07.00 2
    6 Mark Chapman M66 Unattached,Cat Spri 11.89m 39-00.25 1
    These records were announced to the crowd, but no thanks to meet announcer Pete Taylor who seems allergic to the throwers and never misses an opportunity to ignore them even when virtually nothing else is going on in the arena. Exciting competitions in the M60, M55 (a particularly gripping competition that featured SoCal’s Tom Meyer coming from behind on the last throw to narrowly nip Tim Muller by just 6 cm), and M50 weight throw were completely ignored by our deified official masters announcer.
    Throwers wonder if Mr. Taylor, who seems to learn volumes about every decent masters runner who comes along, will ever recognize that we constitute about 20% of the athletes at masters championships and devote some attention to us!

  2. Ken Stone - March 21, 2009

    Actually, George Mathews has thrown farther at least twice this season.
    His best appears to be 19.93 (65-4 3/4):
    http://masterstrack.com/blog/005347.html
    I’ve hung out with Peter at several nationals, and in his defense he’d LOVE to announce throws results (and jumps, too). But he doesn’t get the field-event info he needs while scrambling to get heats sheets (a pain in itself).
    If he deserves a rap, it’s for trying to do everything himself. He welcomes help, but probably doesn’t do enough to recruit it.
    It would take a small cadre of informers to properly announce a masters meet. If you observe a record in Landover, don’t be shy. Find a way of getting the info to Pete. He’ll be thrilled to announce the marks.

  3. peter taylor - March 22, 2009

    We had a field events announcer at the meet all 3 days (Mr. C. Williams of Warrenton, VA). Please refer any and all complaints about field event announcing to Mr. Williams (or to Craig Chasse, president of Potomac Valley TC). I did next to no announcing of the weights because I was not supposed to do that. I did do a little bit of the high jump and long/triple jump because I was in the area (I was too far away to announce the weights, even if I had wanted to do that).
    And I should note that in 2001 when I tried to integrate the shotput into my announcing a thrower complained to Rex Harvey that I had talked during her throw (my practice at that meet was to let them throw, then say something before they went back to the tent). It’s not always that easy.
    Peter Taylor

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