Mother and son vault in college together — and Mom’s better!
This is a hoot. Becca Gillespy Peter shares a link to this great story about a University of Manitoba track squad where a 37-year-old mother and her 20-year-old son are vault teammates! And when I checked back on Becca’s forum, she noted that Mom now has a higher PR than her son. And I quote from an article in a radio station’s site: “The Bison Sports Female Athlete of the Week is Teresa Logozar of the Women’s Track & Field team. The Canadian Masters champion in pole vault and triple jump started her third year with Manitoba and not only set a personal best but also made CIS standard already in the pole vault event.” Teresa jumped 3.70 last weekend — 12-1 1/2. Not bad, considering the W35 vault at Lahti worlds was won at 3.00 (9-10), admittedly a weak field. Son Josh should be mighty proud.
Teresa and son Josh were profiled on Winnipeg TV.
Click image and look for ‘Logozar Family’ to view video.
Meet the new Masters Hall of Famers — oldest inductee is 97
Fourteen superstars make up the 14th class of the USATF Masters Hall of Fame. The list was formally posted yesterday on USATF’s Web site. And Bill Rodgers, the marathon man, became at least the third masters athlete to be in both this HoF and the National Track & Field Hall of Fame (which actually has a physical location: The Armory track center in New York.) Bill, who turns 62 next week, saw his latest induction only 10 years after his first HoF honor. The other double-dippers are Bud Held and Al Oerter. Also notable is multi-eventer Bill Daprano’s induction. His wife, Jeanne, was in the Class of 2003. So that makes them the second married couple in the Hall of Fame — after Christel (1997) and Jerry Donley (1999). (And Christel’s ex-husband, Gary Miller, was inducted in 1999.) The oldest member this year is hurdler Bert Morrow, 97, who competed until age 92 or 93, when he left San Diego County for Canada. He now lives with his daughter. I don’t know exactly where.
Canadian masters elect 1988 Olympian as CMAA president
Canadian delegates gathered Monday in lasix furosemide Toronto for their Annual General Meeting. They chose a new leader, reports Doug Smith of Ontario, who writes: “Brian Keaveney’s term as president expired. Paul Osland was elected as the new president. Paul took the famous fall over the finish line when he was tripped in Lahti — still winning the silver in the 1500!” Paul, a 1988 Olympian for Canada who was born near Los Angeles, wrote a nice little letter introducing himself. Paul says: “My vision is for CMAA to become the ‘go to place’ for all masters’ athletes in Canada as a source of information, community networking and the development and promotion of Masters Athletics within ambien Canada . . . I look forward to serving this great community of athletes and I welcome any comments or feedback to
help us to build an even stronger organization. Please direct your feedback by email to
paul.osland@hotmail.com or to my Facebook account http://www.facebook.com/posland“
Paul tripped over a Brit near end of the M45 1500 final in Lahti. (Click for video)
Official photos from Lahti worlds online, available by email
Four months after the meet, photos of WMA Lahti worlds are online and for sale. Click here for the store. A pair of young Finnish fotogs took more than 7,500 pictures — helpfully arranged by age group and then event. I saw myself high-jumping at Lahti for the first time. It was a Herculean effort to catalog these shots, so the prices are steep but understandable — 6 Euros ($9) each for an electronic image (sent by email) and up to 12 Euros each for a large print (8×12 inches). And unlike my shots, these were taken at all venues, including cross country and the marathon course. (Mine were mainly at the main stadium.) I have hundreds of shots yet to post, so the Finnish dudes beat me! Oh well. Check out their great work.
Free at last! USATF bylaws now grant automatic transfers
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New USATF bylaws “permit an athlete (over 18) to be a member of any Association within 100 miles of his or her bona fide residence.” In other words, automatic transfers! No other masters trackster will have to go through what Linn Dunton, my wife Chris and I did this year — as detailed in my October entry titled “How San Diego USATF protected ‘the integrity of the sport.’ ” The newly passed bylaws (see the draft here) haven’t been posted yet, but all indications are that Regulation 4-B was approved at the Indianapolis annual meeting this month along with other proposals. 4-B cuts the red tape forever — putting the national office in charge of transfer requests instead of an ego-driven political system (detailed here) involving home and destination associations. Indy should be a rubber stamp, in fact. USATF’s Jill Geer also tells me that anyone can jump to any association — not just one within 100 miles of home. But I haven’t seen the final wording that allows this.
John Andrew’s 11.40 ‘world record’ removed from rankings
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Yeah, everyone suspected a hoax. And everyone was right. The 11.40 credited to M55 John Andrew was too good to be true. As detailed here three weeks ago, this superfast 100-meter mark found its way onto mastersrankings.com. How good is 11.40? Well, it beats Bill Collins’ listed M55 world record of 11.44. Now the mark is gone. John Seto, overseer of the seasonal rankings site, deleted it over the weekend after failing to verify the time, and for other reasons. I also poked around, writing two other sprinters at the November 15 meet in Texas where the 11.40 was supposedly run. Curiously, meet director Seth Brower has been silent on this issue — despite several email queries from John and me.
Time to go ‘Elf yourself’ with hilarious digital greeting card
M55 vaulter Mike Soule reminds me that it’s that time of year again. Yup! Time to create an “Elf yourself” greeting card for your friends and family. Mike reminds us that you can send these out and not worry about being late with your regular Christmas cards. These clips change every year (here’s a classic from sometime back), so check out this season’s iteration. A hoot as always.
Kay and Mike Soule dance like disco maniacs in this greeting card.
Germany sending a skeleton crew to Kamloops WMA meet
Deadline for entries is still three weeks off, but according to the Koops’ site, only 21 Germans have entered the 2010 World Masters Indoor Athletics Championships in Kamloops, British Columbia. How bad is that? Well, in 2006, when indoor worlds was held in Linz, Austria, nearly 900 Germans signed up. So don’t expect many heats, I guess. Unless North Americans step up, it appears the Kamloops meet — the fourth indoor worlds — will be the smallest by far. But don’t count on Team USA. As of last night, I saw only 40 in the USATF Status of Entries. Will Canada make up the shortfall? Will Mexico flood the zone? Stay tuned.
Dr. Steve Peters the super-shrink profiled in BBC blog story
M55 superstar Stephen Peters has a day job worth noting, as I’ve frequently noted before. He’s a psychologist for the British Olympic cycling team. Now the BBC’s Tom Fordyce has discovered Dr. Peters and featured him in great story on his blog. Sample: “Peters has a way with animal-based metaphor — he once said all elite athletes could be categorised as Labradors, Rottweilers, Alsatians or poodles — but it’s his depiction of the chimp as the irrational, emotional side of someone’s personality that is the most striking.” I think I’d be a tree sloth. But that’s off the topic. In any case, Steve would probably be embarrassed by all this attention. Fortunately for him, Fordyce doesn’t mention his sprint hobby. That would triple the length of the story.
“What I’m effectively doing is putting you in a zone where you want to be there.”
Debi Lurie’s letter to Santa: Be generous to masters coaches
W50 sprinter Debi Lurie, whose Senior Olympic quest was chronicled in essay form last July, has sent me something new. Just in time for Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, comes a bright little memo to Santa (who brings eight times as many gifts for Jewish children). “Please include all masters track coaches on your ‘good’ list also,” Debi tells St. Nick. “We appreciate all of their efforts. Please give my coach all that he hopes for. He worked so hard. I know you saw him.” She also urges Santa to get into shape for Senior Olympics. (Would his age group be M1600?)
Debi with Coach Brandon, who helped her achieve her Senior Olympic dreams.
