Clueless writing about our sport

[lonewolf]

My Stillwater son, a retired OK State Engineering Director/Professor, 4:02 miler forty years ago, 30 years OK State track starter, called me last week, saying the local newspaper reported that four Ok State milers broke four minutes in the Razorback meet. Being somewhat familiar with OSU track program, he was not aware it was that loaded with milers. I checked the results on TFN and informed him the winner ran 3:57, six under 4:00 but the four OSU runners all finished down the track in 4:03,4:04,4:05 and 4:17.
He called the newspaper and was informed that whoever wrote the article assumed anything under 5:00 was a four-minute mile.

[Conor Dary]

His memory is a bit off....Shorter ran in Munich in Adidas and in Montreal in Asics. His Nike shoes fell apart just before the start of the marathon and wore a pair of Asics shoes he had as a spare.

This was also the beginning of commercialism and all of us were running with Asics or Tiger at the time. Nike was just starting and Nike could not make a pair of shoes good enough for Shorter to run in. So you know what we did? We took a pair of Asics and cut off the stripes and sewed on a swoosh and that’s what he ran the marathon in.”

[Conor Dary]

The actual story is a bit different...it was team thing...

In the Fall, we’d go out and do 3 x 2 miles with a five or six minute jog in between and that same workout by Spring had translated into, the most famous workout I had done in my entire life, we did 6 x 1 mile, jog a quarter mile and we ran every mile under four minutes.

“The way we did it, there were eight of us, everybody did 200m and there was a big clock at the end of each straightaway and you had to hit the clock at zero, 30, 60. You only have one job to run your 200m in 30 secs.”

https://www.leitrimobserver.ie/news/...forgotten.html

[lonewolf]

I read an interview with Irish Olympian Eddie Leddy in an Irish newspaper in which he described a workout he did before the Montreal Olympics, which seems highly unlikely:

"the most famous workout I had done in my entire life, we did 6 x 1 mile, jog a quarter mile and we ran every mile under four minutes."

Something lost in translation. 7.25 miles in 30ish minutes? Dubious.

[Conor Dary]

I never heard of that ...and that would have been something....so pretty doubtful.

[Chicago]

I read an interview with Irish Olympian Eddie Leddy in an Irish newspaper in which he described a workout he did before the Montreal Olympics, which seems highly unlikely:

"the most famous workout I had done in my entire life, we did 6 x 1 mile, jog a quarter mile and we ran every mile under four minutes."

[Trickstat]

Maybe he would have been on time for his qualifying heat - old guys are always early.

Yes, my morning drive to work used to take me past a supermarket where, every day, a number of retired people would be waiting outside about 15 to 20 minutes before it opened.

[Merner521]

Not writing about our sport, but one of our young stars shows up in the stock photo. Why do editors like picking pictures of pole vaulters when they're in the middle of missing a bar - wouldn't a make be more visually pleasing? Unless that's a clue as to the outcome of this scenario...

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/st...?mod=home-page

[gh]

horridly inconvenient, but it's the nature of the beast

[NotDutra5]

unfortunately, things that appear in the links to outside headlines don't appear on the search function... if you go into the View All at bottom of that section you can manually scan for outside links; the Boston piece is currently on the second page.

That's good to know. I looked per your instructions and found it.

[schigh]

Impressive for someone in their late 50s!

Maybe he would have been on time for his qualifying heat - old guys are always early.

[gh]

I found the article in a google search not on this site. I did search T&FN's site and found nothing at all.

unfortunately, things that appear in the links to outside headlines don't appear on the search function... if you go into the View All at bottom of that section you can manually scan for outside links; the Boston piece is currently on the second page.

[NotDutra5]

That's it. Don't know where it is hidden.

I found the article in a google search not on this site. I did search T&FN's site and found nothing at all.

[Trickstat]

Did anyone else catch the error in the Ralph Boston front-page story stating that Jesse Owens won four golds in the Munich Olympics?

Impressive for someone in their late 50s!

[lonewolf]

It is likely this article:

https://www.skysports.com/olympics/n...ible-anecdotes

That's it. Don't know where it is hidden.