6 golds apiece to Carter, Upshaw, Black at WMA Costa Rica
Ann Carter in pentathlon hurdles at WMA regionals.
Hawaii’s Ron Pate led Ivan Black at a water jump at this point of 2K steeple in Costa Rica. Photos by Rob Jerome
Toronto, Cardiff, Barcelona among bidders for 2018 WMA worlds
Athletics Weekly reported Saturday: “Britain is to bid to host the World Masters Track and Field Championships in Cardiff in 2018. British Masters Athletic Federation (BMAF) honorary secretary Bridget Cushen said Cardiff had been chosen after internal UK competition. Cardiff City, Welsh Athletics, Run4Wales and Cardiff University are all keen to help with the bid. … The tracks at Barry and Cardiff University track are also planned to be used and both are going to be upgraded. The university is also making over 5,000 hall of residence rooms available for the use of competitors from around the world.”
Cardiff International Sports Stadium would be the main Welsh venue.
Joe Smith scorches an out-of-nowhere 10.92 WR for 100 at 58?
Paging Willie Gault! If a mark at WMA regionals is to be believed, you have some competition in the over-50 sprints. According to semifinal results Friday, 58-year-old Joseph “Joe” Smith ran the 100 in a wind-legal 10.92 seconds. Say what? That’s a half-second better than the listed M55 world record of 11.44 by that snail of a guy Bill Collins. And his best listed time of 2014 before Friday? Try 12.57 at a mid-June meet in San Mateo. So what gives? He’s primarily a horizontal jumper, whose previous listed dash foray was at 2010 Sacramento nationals. He ran 12.24. So I’m looking for an explanation. He ran on the M55 silver-medal 4×2 team at Budapest worlds this year, but I haven’t been aware of his world-beating speed until now.
If accurate, this is the oldest sub-11 sprinter in history and a massive WR improvement in M55.
Americans already winning gold at Costa Rica WMA regionals
Rob Jerome, masterful masters photographer, writes Thursday from Central America: “Thought I would touch base with you from NCCWMA San Jose, Costa Rica. The action starts early each day (7 AM) and concludes in the early afternoon in order to avoid the daily late afternoon rains. Temperatures during competition today were in the 70s. Very comfortable. The stadium, built in 2011, is fantastic. It has a retractable roof. However, according to Sandy Pashkin, … it cannot be closed to ward off the rains because the meet would then no longer be considered ‘outdoors.’ The track dries quickly, but the sand in the jumping pits remains wet and heavy so long jumpers and triple jumpers are likely to be less than satisfied. Other than that, things look great.” [Results are posted here.]
Ed Hearn hears national anthem at Costa Rica stadium at WMA regionals.
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Steve Robbins summarizes 50-plus years of sprinting lessons
Last year, just before Olathe nationals, I visited my alma mater KU and stopped by Watson Library. I went up to a random librarian and said: “I have to apologize for tearing out a piece of Life magazine in the mid-70s.” I ripped out a quote: “Hurdling is good training for a writer.” The counter guy just looked at me like: Whatever. Now I think writing is good training for a sprinter. Hall of Famer Steve Robbins, the world champ and WR man, has shared a wonderful 3,400-word treatise he wrote three years ago. (He shared it with me after reading Wayne Bennett’s sprint advice.) Too much to summarize in Steve’s version, but I really like his truth-telling: “The ‘magic’ bullets, if you can call them that, are having the right parents and hard training. When a world-class masters athlete tells you he or she takes some supplement and how terrific it is, the fact is that they’d probably be just as good without the supplement. There are, unfortunately, no shortcuts to top performances.” Steve should write a book on masters speed, adding to his collection of biz manuals.
Steve (center) beat Aussie Peter Crombie and Kenton Brown at 2011 Sacramento worlds 100.
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Bill Melville dies at 87; world-class sprinter was big force for years
Bill Melville had a gut — and guts. He ran faster than anyone with a beer belly had a right to do. So I was saddened to learn from Peter Taylor that Bill died Monday of kidney and lung cancer. Peter says he got the news from Bill’s wife, Goldie Melville. “Bill was 87 and resided in Platteville, Wisconsin,” Peter wrote. “The ‘Big Train,’ as I liked to call him, was quite a rumbler on the track and took down more than his share of gold medals. As you may recall, in Riccione (world outdoors) in 2007, Bill stampeded to victory in both the 100 (15.33) and 200 (32.08). This, of course, was in the M80 division. Eight years earlier, in Orlando, Bill won both the 100 (13.34) and 200 (28.48) to win the gold at nationals. He was 72 at the time.”
Second from left, Bill was third in the 100 at perhaps his last major meet: 2013 Olathe nationals.
‘I might have been another Carl Lewis,’ Champion Goldy says at 97
I don’t write enough about the best name in masters track: M95 Champion Goldy Sr. But his local paper did me a favor with this great profile. We learn some interesting things about Champ, 97, a member of the M90 relay teams that set WRs at North Carolina nationals. For example: “I’d like to run in the Penn Relays when I’m 100,” he said. “I could never beat anybody at that age, but I did beat a guy who was 85 years old a couple of times.” And: “The crazy thing is, if I had some coaching, I might have been another Carl Lewis. As a 14-year-old, they tell me I did the 100 in 10.2, and that’s pretty fast.” He’s still plenty fast. See you at Penn!
Champ with his N.C. nationals medals. Photo by Douglas Bovitt of Courier-Post
Wayne’s Wisdom: M75 Bennett shares bounty on faster sprinting
A couple weeks ago, M75 sprinter Wayne Bennett sent me a paper he wrote, saying that coaches who say “run yourself silly and then run some more” is bad advice, especially for masters. “This just tears up the body and tires it out,” Wayne writes from Texas. So he attached a short paper he once wrote and says he believes it really works. He begins: “One of the things that I have noticed is that a lot of sprinters don’t really know what to concentrate on in their training. Too many of them rely on what they remember from high school and college days. All too often that training was faulty.”
Oscar Peyton says in his 20s he could have beaten Usain Bolt
M60 Oscar Peyton wasn’t boasting. He was just matter-of-fact talking about his never-realized potential as an open sprinter. Our frequent national sprint champ — who beats Bill Collins on rare occasions — was being featured in a local TV segment. He notes that he didn’t run track till his 50s. So his guess on his elite/open speed is as good as anyone’s. Gotta love the big guy (6-foot-4) comparing himself to the Jamaican legend.
Oscar takes the 2 at North Carolina nationals ahead of Damien Leake. Good lift.
Irene Obera won’t be IAAF World’s Best Master Athlete in 2014
San Jose, Costa Rica, stadium hosting NCCWMA meet starting Aug. 21.
