Lahti rest day will feature open meet, ski jump competition!
August 5 will be the rest day at Lahti worlds, but not for some kids and ski jumpers. According to this site, “Lahden Ahkera and Lahden Hiihtoseura are organizing for a second time a popular sports event, The Salpausselkä Summer Evening, at the sports centre (in Lahti) on Wednesday 5.8.2009. The program . . . consists of athletics and ski jumping. . . . In the athletics the program includes at least two international high level sports. In addition to that the veterans and top runners compete with each other in 100 meters run so that the runners are given advantage according to their age. The ski jumping competition takes place among top jumpers, children, young and veteran jumpers so that the children, young and veterans are given higher speed than the top jumpers. . . . The organizers are expecting 10,000 spectators to the event.”
Summertime ski jumpers skid into a pool in Lahti.
Nadine O’Connor puts W65 world record in vault outtasight
Back in San Diego a week after nationals, Nadine O’Connor returned to her specialty at the Friday Night Vault series at San Diego State University. She cleared her fourth world record of the year, going 3.19 meters (10-5 1/2) to raise her own WR of 3.17 set in early June. “This was probably her last record attempt for the year, as she is going to start reworking her vaulting form after the decathlon in Seattle,” writes Bud Held, her life partner and coach.
Photos posted from awards ceremony at Oshkosh banquet
USATF 2008 Masters Athletes of the Year Bill Collins, Kay Glynn and Kathy Martin were present for the awards ceremony at the Oshkosh Athletes Banquet a week ago at nationals. Click here for photos. The most touching moment was when Bill took the microphone and nearly choked up in sharing his appreciation for masters track and his world of friendships. Almost cried. Bill, who fought through the pain of a stress fracture at nationals, has rarely been this emotional in public. Several hundred age-groupers dined on salmon and steak at the banquet, held at the Oshkosh Convention Center, but there was no entertainment, music or dancing this year. (Hawaii had hula dancers, Charlotte featured clog dancers and Spokane had a band, for example.) My wife, Chris, took the vast majority of these shots. If you’re interested in a high-resolution image, write her at ESLChris@aol.com. Action shots from Oshkosh will be online soon.
USATF Masters Athletes of 2008 were honored at Saturday night banquet.
USATF posts photo galleries from Oshkosh masters nationals
Check out this day-by-day photo gallery from Oshkosh. The 450-plus pictures cover a gamut of events. USATF sent a young staffer from Indy, former Ball State high jumper Kristina Hervey, to capture these images, which are pretty good (but not quite as fine as the ones wife Chris and I shot at nationals). Our photos will be posted shortly after we get home from Milwaukee, where we’re visiting a dozen relatives — most of them current or retired Milwaukee police officers or detectives (keyword: Dubis). Over at YLFOR, Pete Magill did a magnificent job summarizing the running events. (See Pete’s writeup.) Also, USATF has put out a press release on Lahti worlds. Hometown roster has been promised, but I haven’t seen it yet. Finally, Jeff Brower has posted selected Oshkosh videos on his Waterloo Track Club movie page. One shows the M50 shuttle hurdle relay. Some splits: W70-79 Becky Sisley 17.2. M60-69 Ozzie Binion 17.1. M50-59 Jeff Brower 14.9 and Eugene Anton 15.3. Marks were hand-timed and wind-aided.
Lahti entries posted here, and watch out for Enrico Saraceni
Italy’s Enrico Saraceni, M40 world record holder in the 400 at 47.81, turned 45 in mid-May. And wouldn’t you know it? He’s close to claiming the M45 WR as well. Fred Sowerby of the United States holds that record — 50.20 in 1994, a mark that’s defied James Lofton and other quarter-mile greats. But last Saturday, competing in an open meet, Enrico ran the 4 in 50.61. Here are results. And here’s an article on the Italian track Web site. Meanwhile, the Lahti world championships folks today unveiled men’s and women’s entry lists by age and event. But the files are Word documents — a hassle to open. Not to worry. I’ve converted them. No muss, no fuss. Here are the men’s entries. And here are the women’s entries. In addition, exact time schedules are also online. But the Lahti folks posted these as Microsoft Excel spreadsheet files. Oh, geeze. Again we save the day.
Ill-fated M55 100 final posted on YouTube, shows close finish
Bill Collins was edged in the last few yards of his 100-meter duel with Oscar Peyton, according to this YouTube video. Oscar’s 11.50 was wiped from the results, however, as detailed in this earlier post. John Simpson’s 11.04 victory in the M40 100 also is shown here. Keep your eyes peeled for other uploads from nationals. (And thanks to Oshkosh resident Sleepy7 for the videos!) Meanwhile, USATF bonked. It chose a kid competing in IAAF Youth Worlds for Athlete of the Week, failing to honor any of a dozen WR setters at masters nationals as has been the practice in years past. Oh well. Too many greats to choose from, I guess.
Guido Müller injures foot, is likely to miss Lahti worlds
German M70 superstar Guido Müller broke his foot last weekend while lowering his own world record in the 300-meter hurdles at German nationals, according to the Koops’ site. Christine Mueller and Bruno Kimmel also set WRs, according to the post. (Results are posted here.) The listed M70 WR for the long hurdles is 49.07 by Canada’s Earl Fee in 1999. Guido ran an incredible 45.24, which corresponds on the Age Graded Tables to a 400 hurdles of 45.00! If Guido can’t run at Lahti, he can take consolation in a season that already qualifies as one of the greatest in his age group in history, with world records also set in the 200 and 400 and some events indoors.
Headed for Lahti? Yank who used to live there offers tour
Doug Thompson, an M50 runner writing on our Forum, says he’d like to organize a tour or informational dinner on Lahti culture and history for fellow Americans (or others) competing at worlds. Doug writes: “I lived in Finland for two years when I was 20 and 21. Spent time in all the major cities in southern Finland, including a few months in Lahti itself, and I haven’t been back since.” Doug thinks, rightly, that Americans shouldn’t just blow in and out of Finland without soaking up some local color. Thankfully, it’s not sauna season — so we won’t be forced to jump from a sizzling steam room into a frigid lake. Or vice versa. But Doug will be the go-to guy for Lahti insider info. Every little bit helps.
Oshkosh Day 4: More records for Meiler, McPhie and Harvey
Flo Meiler, Leland McPhie and Sabra Harvey set more records today at Oshkosh — along with several others notching new age-group bests for a second or third time in this meet (Becky Sisley and Karen Steen among them). Jill Geer’s summary of the day is posted here. So the only question now is: Who will USATF choose as its Athlete of the Week? It’s traditional for Indy HQ to pick the top performer at masters nationals as its AoW the Monday or Tuesday after nationals. But how can you select a single star at this meet? I won’t even try. But I’d like to single out the most impressive new stars in the masters universe: W50 Cheryl Bellaire and M50 Michael Waller, who didn’t set records but left me awestruck. Cheryl won the 400 less than 2 hours after running (and winning) the 2K steeple for the first time in her life. Cheryl also took national titles in the 800 and 1500. She’s just a pixie of a lady, but she was a giant at these nationals. Michael was merely a giant-slayer, beating world champs Val Barnwell, Jim Chinn and Marty Krulee in the sprints. Michael swept the 1, 2 and 4. Who do you think deserves top honors from Oshkosh? Here are complete results.
How Bill Collins won his latest 100 at nationals (Peyton DQ’d)
The posted results from Oshkosh show Bill Collins clocking 11.56 today and winning his latest 100-meter final at nationals. Spectators, though, saw him take second in the M55 race to Oscar Peyton, the lanky Maryland sprinter who beat Bill in the Landover 200 last March. Say what? It turns out Oscar was DQ’d at the start after false-starting twice but was allowed to run because he issued an immediate verbal protest. Oscar, out in lane 9 on the clay-colored Mondo track, jumped the gun with a gent in lane 8 — and both were carded for a false start. Later, he and the Lane 8 entrant false-started separately. Both were DQ’d and both were left out of the final, official results. There were five or six false starts in the final (a misnomer, since there were no M55 prelims, partly because I scratched due to my head injury). The plethora of false starts angered Bill Collins, who was nursing a tender lower leg, icing it after every race.
Oscar was photographed finishing
the 100 by the Oshkosh newspaper.
