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Happy Birthday Evelyn Ashford!!
My All Time Favorite Olympian.
My All Time Favorite Olympian.
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Re: Happy Birthday Evelyn Ashford
you are not alone.Originally posted by Run84Happy Birthday Evelyn Ashford!!
My All Time Favorite Olympian.... nothing really ever changes my friend, new lines for old, new lines for old. -
Ashford and Rudolph far and away the class(in more ways than one) of US women's sprinting history. Felix getting there as its present.Comment
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Agree wholeheartedly. I met her twice, if getting autographs counts.Originally posted by guruComment
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Happy B Day Evelyn!
How old is she?The fool has said...there is no God. Psa 14Comment
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52.Originally posted by TrackDaddy
Speaking of Evelyn, I think I asked this question before and didn't get an answer; but in 1982, I think in L.A., she ran 60y indoors in 6.48, which should have been a WR (I still have the newspaper clipping of the results, buried under more track clippings), but it was never ratified. Why was that?Comment
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What a class act. 8-)Comment
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Where do you run indoors in LA?Originally posted by CookyMonztaThe fool has said...there is no God. Psa 14Comment
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You don't now, but there used to be major indoor meets, both at the Sports Arena and the Forum, on 11-lap banked board tracks.Comment
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Originally posted by CookyMonzta
I believe this was the race in which Evelyn's coach Pat Connelly set up with Evelyn competing in a field with men, and she the lone female. She placed last, but as you say, it was a world record time unfortunately the time was could not be officially ratified for record purposes because of the mix gender field. Pat Connelly mentioned this race in her book Fast, Faster, Fastest Women in the World.Comment
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I've seen it listed as "rolling start."Originally posted by CookyMonztaComment
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I don't live in L.A., but I remember the newspaper clipping having results of an invitational track meet in L.A., where Evelyn ran 6.48. I can't dig through my collection right now.Originally posted by TrackDaddyComment
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Wrong race. In the meet where she ran 6.48, she won the race, and it was all women. No one else broke 6.60. That much I do know from the results. And she wasn't the one responsible for the rolling start, if there ever was one.Originally posted by celar68
I've gotta look through my track collection one day.Comment
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I found it. It was Friday, Feb. 19, 1982, at the San Diego Invitational. I'm reading key events from the results I cut out from the New York Daily News on Monday, Feb. 22, 1982.Originally posted by CookyMonzta
Mary Decker-Slaney (then married to Ron Tabb) ran the mile in 4:20.5 to break the WR of 4:21.47 she set at the Millrose. Francie Larrieu ran 4:32.7, and Joan Hansen ran 4:33.9.
Ron Brown ran 6.13 to win the 60y, followed by Darwin Cook (6.15) and Houston McTear (6.20). They also have results at 50y, but I don't know if it was in the same race or an entirely different race. Brown crossed the 50y mark in 5.2, with Cook 5.3 and McTear 5.3.
Doug Padilla ran 8:16.8 for 2 miles. If I'm not mistaken, this was an AR performance. Graeme Fell was 2nd in 8:22.7 and Paul Cummings 3rd in 8:25.2.
Larry Myricks jumped 26' 7¾" to win the long jump. Neither of the next 2 broke 25 feet.
Evelyn Ashford ran 6.48 to win the 60y, with Diane Williams 2nd in 6.76 and Emi Akimoto 3rd. They didn't get a time on Akimoto.
Was anybody at this meet in 1982, to watch Mary's mile WR (which is still the AR) or Evelyn's 6.48? Did they announce Evelyn's performance as a new WR?
According to the New York Times report (Saturday, Feb. 27, 1982) on the USA Track and Field Indoor Championships, they say a malfunction of the timing equipment was the reason the mark was never recognized. Or so they claim.
From my standpoint, it looks legit. The straightaway sprints were the only events using automatic timing. Ron Brown's performance, and I might add, Diane Williams' 2nd-place performance, look extremely legit. Either that, or he didn't break 6.40, and Evelyn didn't break 6.70, and Diane Williams didn't break 7.00, and we know they were quite capable of running much faster than that!
Did anyone go to this meet? Did anyone in California watch this meet? Does anyone have video footage of this meet? Some of us would certainly be grateful if you posted the footage of this race at YouTube; not just to judge for ourselves, but to watch Evelyn at her very best.
Does the video of this meet still exist? I think it does, because I remember seeing a clip of Mary's 4:20.5 performance (but not the whole race).
As far as I know, the official world record for 60y is still 6.54, set by Evelyn Ashford and later tied by Jeanette Bolden, and both performances convert to 6.56 for 55m, which Gwen Torrence ran. The only way to resolve the riddle of Evelyn's 6.48 is to do what they did to the women's 400 footage at the 1985 Millrose.
After the automatic timing equipment failed to start, Diane Dixon was left with a hand-timed 52.9 performance, ineligible for an AR even though it was faster than the AR at the time. They took the video of that race, ran it through a machine, frame by frame, and came up with 53.07 for an AR.
Even if it's a moot point today (because Irina Privalova's pair of 6.92s for 60m surely convert to something slightly faster than 6.48 for 60y), they can still do the same with Evelyn's 60y race in San Diego in 1982. I'd bet very good horse money the time holds, and the 55m WR would be reset to something like 6.50, and she would be the sole holder of that record.Comment
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