Race walkers given runaround in directions to WMG course
As mentioned earlier, entrants at the World Masters Games have encountered problems finding their venues. (Fun fact: the track meet isn’t being held inside the Sydney Olympic stadium but at the adjacent practice track, I’m told.) Race walkers are the most recent victims. Stefan Waltermann passed along a translation of a post on Annette Koop’s German blog. “This one is pretty good,” Stefan says. “It is written by Angelika Holder of Holder Tours (Travel Agents for Masters).” It is titled:
Well, where are they race walking today?
Results botched at WMG? M60 champ robbed of 5 meters
Tom Fahey, our perennial national discus champion, is a connossieur of fine track meets. He knows how things are supposed to be run. Usually that includes posting the correct results. Duh. But that didn’t happen to him at the World Masters Games. Tom sent me three photos showing that he had better distances than the 44.67 (146-6) credited him in the official results. Tom writes: “My wife took photos of the competition, which shows that I actually threw 49.67 with a second throw of 48.95. She took photos of the scoreboard and the landing site in the field that showed clearly that the mark was at the 50-meter mark– not 15 feet less.”
Tom’s best throw was marked near near the 50-meter pylon radius.
Shuttle bus from Seattle to Kamloops in the works for worlds
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Robert Thomas, the M40 world 400-meter champ at Lahti, has found a way to save big money on Kamloops travel: Find a flight to Seattle and hop a
chartered shuttle bus! Robert writes: “I took the liberty of contacting
a charter bus company to
see what it would cost from Seattle to Kamloops (site of 2010 indoor worlds). We can get a
55-passenger bus from Saturday, (February) 27, and returning on Sunday,
March 7,
for $120.00 per person. For every person below that 55, it would add
about $2.50 per person.” Anyone interested can contact Robert and let him know their travel plans. You’re also welcome to post on our travel/lodging forum if you want to share a ride.
Sportswriter covering Sydney WMG leaps to conclusions
I’m Olga Kotelko’s biggest fan. But I don’t exaggerate her credits. No need for that. Not so with Lisa Martin, a sportswriter in Australia who profiled Olga in the Brisbane Times today. Lisa wrote: “At 90-years-old, Canadian Olga Kotelko is the oldest known long jump competitor in the world.” Well, no. My own city, San Diego, has an older long jumper. Remember Leland McPhie, 95, at Oshkosh? (Here’s a video of him jumping.) And Lahti worlds had two 90-plus long jumpers: Ilmari Koppinen of Finland and Efrain Wachs of Argentina, both born in 1918. I wouldn’t call Leland the oldest long jumper. But if I wanted to, I’d at least check around.
Leland McPhie apparently amazed a judge at 2008 Spokane nationals.
Dirty little secret of World Masters Games revealed in story
A site called Monsters and Critics has posted this little article. The headline tells it all: Cost decisive factor for many athletes at World Masters Games. So tell me something I don’t know. Of course, with all the hoohah celebrating the supergeezers and the economic impact of World Masters Games, few articles discuss whether these multisport festivals mean much in deciding who really is the best swimmer, boater or hurdler. They remain all-comers meets. And the dream of a true Masters Olympics remains distant. Someday, somebody will figure out how to monetize these events. Then we can celebrate true world champions.
Belated spring cleaning for mastershistory.org WMA results
Our museum of masters track — mastershistory.org — had some dust bunnies and broken links. So I did some housecleaning tonight on the WAVA/WMA results page. It’s easier now to tell what you’re clicking on. I added meet dates, for example. And you have several options for seeing the same thing — you can view the official results books or the display given by National Masters News back in the day. One problem I fixed involved recent World Masters Athletics Championships — including the 2003 Puerto Rico meet and the 2005 San Sebastian meet. They were dead links. That’s because I originally linked to the official results on the World Masters Athletics site. But when that site got a redo recently, the 2003 and 2005 results fell out of the deck. In other words, you can’t find these results anywhere on the WMA Web site! But I have a supersecret backdoor way of finding old results. It’s called archive.org. I downloaded results from copied versions of old WMA pages. Don’t tell WMA. Let ’em stew.
Maxwell Springer dies at 95; Hall of Famer and world champ
Maxwell Springer, who competed as recently as August, suffered a fatal stroke on Sunday, October 11, I’ve been informed. He was 10 days short of 96. This is a great loss to our tribe. Former WMA Vice President Rex Harvey, who shared the sad news, wrote: “He was a fine man and conducted himself with real dignity and class.” Max, one of three M95s competing at Oshkosh nationals, was elected to the USATF Masters Hall of Fame in 2006. At the National Senior Olympics in Palo Alto, he won the 100, 200, 400, 800 and long jump. And his local paper reported the admiration of his running rival, Frank Levine, who said after the Oshkosh 400: “I have to bow to a better man. He’s six months older than I am, so he deserves a lot of credit.”
Max Springer chugged around the track at Oshkosh masters nationals in July.
mastersathletics.info posting dozens of videos from Sydney
Geoff Bramley, my Down Under doppelgänger, has posted 40 videos shot from the stands at the World Masters Games. Click here for a growing list. Many heats of the 100 and 800, plus finals, are up, including some showing folks running in the rain and Michael Waller’s M50 victory. Geoff’s site also introduces a new book on masters sports and training by a 54-year-old associate professor at Central Queensland University named Peter Reaburn. His book is called “The Masters Athlete,” drawing on his own experiences as a swimmer, runner and tri guy. He writes about Chapter 1: “Ever wondered why you age? Or why exercise not only adds life to your
years and years to your life? This chapter looks at the ‘big picture’
of aging but presents in detail the 10 secrets science has unlocked to
aging successfully.” But if they’re secrets, why tell them? In any case, Geoff’s site isn’t keeping any secrets. He’s also competing at WMG. He did the M50 pentathlon. Great job, GM! Keep ’em coming!
Earl Fee’s encore to 800 WR at Lahti? Another in Sydney!
(Oct. 15 update: See comments below for correction to this erroneous post.) Last April, M80 superstar Earl Fee of Canada told Pete Magill the story of a parachutist who’d done about 1,000 jumps, and was asked what he wanted to do in the future. And he said, “Do more jumps!” And then they asked (Earl): “What do you want to do in the future?” And he replied: ‘Run more records!’ ” Mission accomplished. Tuesday at the Sydney World Masters Games, the Great Earl ran two laps in 2:49.30 — winning his age group by about 24 seconds. In so doing, he lowered his own world record from Lahti worlds of 2:49.92. His was but one of many amazing marks Down Under. I can’t recount them all, but ones that caught my eye include M55 Stacey Price’s 15.50 win in the 100-meter hurdles, W60 Phil Raschker’s 4-second margin in the 80-meter hurdles (on a day she also won the 400), and another medal (gold) for Oregon’s Becky Sisley, this time in the javelin. Of course, Olga Kotelko wins every W90 event in sight, the latest being the javelin.
Getty Images archived an angular Earl warming up with a 100 earlier in the meet.
W100 Ruth Frith featured in Jay Leno’s opening monologue
Jay Leno, you better watch out. It’s OK to poke fun at centenarian hammer throwers, but if Ruth Frith sees you on the street, she may conk you on the head. Anyway, Jay’s monologue last night featured a clip of the W100 Aussie thrower at the World Masters Games. But with some digital magic, they made Ruth fly through the air. Thanks go to masters multi-eventer Karen Vaughn, who brought this to our attention. Actually, this is great publicity for our niche sport! Check this out:
Click on the image, ignore the commercial and wait for the Ruth Frith clip.
