The Holy Grail: all masters championship results online
What if they gave a track meet and didn’t give results? Of course, that never happens. But that’s the upshot in masters track, where you have to own back issues of National Masters News to have a clue who won the M70 short hurdles in any USA nationals before 1996. In any other major championship — the IAAF World Championships or the Olympics, for example — the Web offers numerous sites with deep historical results. Not in masters.
In fact, even David Pain — the founder of masters track in America — has lost results from early USA masters nationals.
So ever since starting this site in February 1996, I’ve made it my habit to save or link to results from major national and international masters meets. The earliest results on the original Masters Track & Field Home Page are all from 1996. The Web portion of the Internet essentially started in 1994, but few people were posting masters track results back then.
In Great Britain, a little-noticed site lists all WAVA/WMA world meet champions from the first meet in 1975. But nothing of second, third or 12th.
So what to do?
I’ll start by asking USATF for results. I’ll ask WMA, too. Whatever I get I’ll post, either as a Web page or a PDF that you can open and view on your computer and download to your home PC.
One of the reasons I started this site is to give recognition to some incredible track athletes who happen to be older than your usual flavor of jumper, runner or thrower. Giving results from pre-Web years is another way of honoring these amazing athletes.
The USATF National Masters Hall of Fame is another. No definitive listing exists online that I’m aware of. But that’s a story for another day.
