World Indoor Championships Postponed to 2021
and Several R.I.P.s
The following story appeared in The Guardian today Jan. 29, 2020World Indoor Athletics cancelled over coronavirus with Chinese GP at risk
• World Athletics confirms event has been delayed for year
• F1 race on 19 April in Shanghai at risk, says virus expert
Press release from World Athletics
• F1 race on 19 April in Shanghai at risk, says virus expert
Press release from World Athletics
It is with regret that we have agreed with the organisers of the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing (13-15 March 2020) to postpone the event to March 2021.
We know that China is doing all it can to contain the new Coronavirus and we support them in all their efforts but it is necessary to provide our athletes, Member Federations and partners with a clear way forward in what is a complex and fast-moving set of circumstances.
The advice from our medical team, who are in contact with the World Health Organisation, is that the spread of the Coronavirus both within China and outside the country is still at a concerning level and no one should be going ahead with any major gathering that can be postponed.
We have considered the possibility of relocating the event to another country and would like to thank the cities that have volunteered to host the championships. However, given concerns still exist regarding the spread of the virus outside China, we have decided not to go with this option, as it may lead to further postponement at a later date.
The indoor season for athletics falls within a narrow calendar window (up to the end of March) and we believe we will be able to find a suitable date in 2021 to host this event. We would like Nanjing to be the host given the extensive planning and preparation they have put into this event.
We have chosen not to cancel the championships as many of our athletes would like this event to take place so we will now work with our athletes, our partners and the Nanjing organising committee to secure a date in 2021 to stage this event.
OUTV Responds To This Crisis
We called an imediate staff meeting in the headquarters of OUTV on the fourteenth floor (Roy's Corner Office) this afternoon to discuss the possibilties of greater pressures emanating from this first big cancellation of a sports happening in China due to the outbreak of the Corona Virus. Roy said he wasn't worried, he survived measles, chicken pox, diarhhea, and IQ deficiency, all without the aid of any dang vaccinations. Steve seconded Roy's views saying only that certain diseases he once picked up in SE Asia were all treatable and curable. Only George was a bit hesitant, saying schistosomiasis was nothing to fool around with and the putzi fly that got into his system in Zimbabwe had to find its own way out through a pimple on his backside. We all did agree though that this news item has surpassed every story on real TV even the current impeachment procedings. And the kicker is that the Tokyo Olympics is just around the corner. If that baby crosses the Sea of Japan and gets into the water in Tokyo Bay, it will be curtains for the Olympics this year. Only WWI and II have been able to curtail the Olympics.
"If I were on the Tokyo Olympic Committee I would be sweating my balls off." said Roy with a nonchalant grin as he looked for his latest electronic issue of TF&N.
"It's on your computer, dufus." said Steve.
"If they are serious about dropping the Grand Prix of Shanghai, I'd be worried." chimed in George.
In a more serious vein, a number of former American Olympians have passed away recently.
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| Art Bragg and Dean Smith after the Helsinki 100 meters |
Arthur Bragg 1952 Olympics. 100 meters, 6th in semis but was injured and finished anyway. Died Aug 25th 2018 age 87.
Art Bragg didn’t. Brag, that is. About his track exploits at Morgan State or making the 1952 Olympic team or the stacks of plaques and medals squirreled away in his home in Los Angeles.
“Art tended not to dwell on his achievements all those years,” said his wife, Marie Bragg.
A Baltimore native and onetime NCAA sprint champion, Bragg died of cardiac arrest Aug. 25 at a hospital near his residence in Southern California. He was 87.
A star of Morgan State’s mighty track and field teams of the early 1950s, Bragg won four Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association 100-yard dash titles and three 220-yard finals. As a sophomore in 1951, he won the NCAA 100-yard championship in 9.6 seconds. A year later, at the U.S. Olympic Trials, Bragg won again, taking the 100-meter finals in 10.5 seconds.
But there were troubles ahead. Before the 1952 Summer Games in Helsinki, Finland, he pulled a hamstring — and aggravated it in an Olympic qualifying heat. His right leg bandaged, Bragg finished last in the semifinals. The gold medal went to teammate Lindy Remigino, whom he’d beaten in the U.S. t
“I have no alibi,” Bragg told reporters.
“That sounds like Art,” said Tignor Douglass, a longtime friend. “He never made excuses for anything.”
Douglass, 86, of Henderson, Nev., grew up in West Baltimore and met Bragg in grade school.
“On the playground, we’d race from fence to fence and Art always beat everyone,” said Douglass, a retired engineer. “He was outgoing but not boisterous, and well-liked.”
Helena Hicks, 84, played with Bragg as a child and remembered her cousin as “a runner forever. He was always saying, ‘I can get to the store before you’ or, ‘I’ll beat you to the corner.’
In a 1952 interview with the Baltimore Afro-American, Bragg’s father, Arthur, recalled the time his 5-year-old just took off running.
“We were walking one morning in Harlem Square,” he said. “All of a sudden he said, ‘Daddy, I’m going to do something,’ and with that, he broke away and ran. I tried to catch him but the kid was running so fast that I gave up the chase.”
Passersby, sensing some urgency, tried to corral the youngster, to no avail. Finally, the father said, his son stopped and “a young woman who had seen it all said, ‘That boy has what it takes to be a great runner someday.’
Bragg ran track at Douglass ,High before attending Morgan State,where he teamed with celebrated athletes like George Rhoden, who won two gold medals in the 1952 Olympics (400 meters and 4x400-meter relay) and Josh Culbreath, a hurdler who won a bronze in 1956. Bragg continued running after college until 1956, when he moved to California to work as a deputy probation officer for Los Angeles County until his retirement in 1993.
A 1974 inductee of the Morgan State Athletic Hall of Fame, he was enshrined a year later into the Maryland State Athletic Hall of Fame.
Bragg stayed active almost to the end, said his wife of 48 years.
“He took a bad fall in January but, prior to that, he was walking as much as three miles a day,” she said. “He didn’t look 87. His body was firm and strong, and he always had handsome legs.”
During the months of recovery that followed, Maria Bragg said, her husband “changed the attitudes of many patients [in physical therapy] with his upbeat attitude. To one downhearted woman who walked by, Art said, ‘Would you save the next dance for me?’ Everyone broke out laughing, and she appreciated that.”
Bragg never forgot a face, his wife said, but his memory was a double-edged sword when he harked back to the 1952 Olympics.
“It always brought sadness to his mind, knowing he’d come so close to his chance to excel before that terrible injury,” she said. “It was something he was never quite able to rise above.” by Mike Klingamen, Baltimore Sun Aug. 28, 2018.
Debbie Thompson (Brown) 1964 Olympics, 200 m , eliminated in lst round
Died Nov 17 2019 age 77
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| Edith McGuire, Wyomia Tyus, Pam Kilborn, Debbie Thompson Brown indoors |
Summoning a burst of energy, sprinter Debbie Thompson Brown unleashed a late surge. When she ran like this, monumental things happened. Races were won, stopwatches displayed unbelievable times, national and world records fell. By finishing second in the 200-meter dash at the U.S. Olympic Trials that day, she earned a spot on the United States Olympic track and field team for the 1964 Games in Tokyo.
Thompson Brown, the only Frederick County native to compete for the United States in the Olympics, and a longtime youth track and field coach in Frederick, died Sunday. She was 72. Thompson Brown’s name is on a relatively short list of Frederick County Maryland athletes who reached their sport’s top tier. And she, along with Frederick Track and Field Club teammate Tammy Davis Thompson and coach Jack Griffin, helped put Frederick on the map in the world of track and field.
The first inkling of Thompson Brown’s world-class potential came when her rare speed was discovered in a school fitness test. Eventually, the unbeatable combination of her natural talent, training and drive yielded milestones that seemed improbable coming from someone who grew up in tiny Frederick.
As a 15-year-old, she broke the world indoor 60-yard dash record held by Wilma Rudolph, an Olympian she emulated, with a time of 6.7 seconds. At Tokyo she was eliminated in the first round of the 200.
by john Cannon Frederick News Post Nov. 21, 2019
Died Sept 21, 2019 age 42. Two-time Olympic discus thrower Jarred Rome was found dead on Saturday in his hometown in Northern Washington, just days after he was inducted into Snohomish County Sports Hall of Fame.
Rome was a member of Team USA for the 2004 Olympics in Athens and the 2012 Olympics in London. The two-time USA Outdoor champion also won a silver medal at the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico. Rome, who graduated from Boise State in 2000, also won a silver medal at the 1997 NCAA Outdoor Championships.
Rome was inducted into the Snohomish County (Washington) Sports Hall of Fame on Wednesday night. His sister told the Herald that he went out with friends at a casino in town on Friday night, but wasn’t feeling well. People checked in on him repeatedly during the night, but he was found unresponsive on Saturday morning.
Investigators are still working to determine his cause of death.
“I had lots of failure,” Rome said at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, via the Herald. “I was never the top thrower in high school, I was never the top thrower in college. I considered myself to be the hardest worker. I never had the talent, I frankly never believed I could make the national team, that was never a goal of mine. The support I had shows tonight from the family and friends who are here, without your support I would never be here.”
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| Ted Vogel winning Yonkeers Marathon 1947 |
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| Ted Vogel leading runners out of Olympic Stadium London 1948 |
Ted Vogel 1948 Olympics, marathon finished 14th. Died Sept 27, 2019 age 94.
from seacoastonline.com by Susan Putney September 24, 2019
DOVER -- Ted Vogel has had a remarkable past, and now he’s being celebrated by Langdon Place, his residence of five years. The 94-year-old is one of Dover’s Olympic heroes and a man who has been supported and revered by the New England running community for decades.
He was discovered by the legendary runner Johnny “Jock” Semple while a student at St. Mary’s in Waltham, Massachusetts, according to Langdon Place. Semple and Vogel served together in the war where Semple was a chief petty officer and Vogel was specialized in naval communications.
During his heyday, Vogel was one of the top runners in the United States. In 1947, he was third at the Boston Marathon and won the Yonkers Marathon. In 1948, he finished second in the Boston Marathon, going head to head with Canadian legend Gerald Cote for the lead during the final miles of the race. Also in 1948, he became the 10,000-meter national champion.
At the 1948 Olympics held in London, Vogel made the U.S. Olympic team and finished 14th in the marathon, the top American.
After he settled in Dover in 1984, he ran local races and was a state record holder in New Hampshire 5K when he was in his 70s. In 1998, he ran one of his final races with the nuns at the St. Charles Children’s Home in Rochester which transitioned to a children’s day school in 2013.
Ted Vogel and his wife, Jean, whom he married in 1996, have called Langdon Place of Dover home since May 2014. During Olympic events, he always wore his USA sweatshirt and waved an American flag proudly to cheer on USA athletes. During Summer Olympic events, he was especially vocal cheering on the USA track team runners and happily reminiscing about his own Olympic experience to residents.
Sadly, many of those memories have faded, according to Langdon Place. In 2008 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and now resides in the memory unit. His wife Jean has become his biggest cheerleader, happily displaying clippings and photos of Vogel in his running days to guests who visit. She also has his collection of running shoes, which look archaic compared to those worn by athletes today, and proudly has photos of his Olympic marathon framed on the walls of her home.
“Seacoast area residents in general, and residents of Langdon Place of Dover still proudly salute Ted Vogel, our hometown Olympic hero,” said a spokesman.
