V 13 N. 64 Title IX Celebration in Southern California Invite

 Ron Morris asked us to post this message.  Hoping to see those who can make it to Santa Barbara County Courthouse on Friday  June 23, 2023 from Noon to 1:30PM

i remember it well. One of my finest runners, Breggar Moore (1:57-4:14-9:00m) had a sister who reported out for track the next season and set initial records in all distance events. It was not until the next year that we had official uniforms for the girls who started reporting from the basketball squad and the soccer programs. I must admit that they were a welcome addition to the team. At the same time, I also admit that I wonder what effect having lovely ladies training with us in High School would have had on my concentration of the daily work-outs. Just a thought!

Darryl

That's a wild looking running "suit" senator  Bayh was wearing      

 

 

Mike Waters

V 13 N. 63 Dominic Lobalu , A Refugee Athlete's Life in the Fast Lane

 

June 18, 2023

I found this story incredible to read explaining how someone can come out of a terrible first part of their life and still show the grace and fortitude to succeed in some aspect of life.   The pain in the late stages of a hotly contested race is probably minimalist compared to what he has gone through while growing up.   

The other part of this article is mind boggling when it tries to explain what an international bureacracy can create to ignore or recognize a human being's right to exist and compete against one's equals.  

If athletes from Russia can compete under the Olympic Flag, why can't Lobalu do the same?  Bill Schnier

The following story appeared in The Guardian today but originated in The Observer written by Ben Bloom.   

The ObserverAthletics

‘I’m born to suffer’: refugee athlete Dominic Lobalu on race to find a home

Saga of the stateless elite runner and the Swiss school teacher who saw his talent is the subject of a new documentary

Ben Bloom

Sun 18 Jun 2023 10.00 BST

The scene is the closing stages of last year’s Stockholm Diamond League 3,000 metres. Jacob Kiplimo, Uganda’s half marathon world record holder and an Olympic medalist, heads a quartet of runners approaching the final bend on his way to what is expected to be a routine win. Trailing him are Kenya’s Cornelius Kemboi and Stewart McSweyn of Australia. We know that because the commentator says so. The fourth of the leading pack is an unidentified man in a plain white singlet.

‘I feel like a kid again’: CJ Ujah returns to the track and targets redemption in Paris

Read more

Entering the home straight, the man in white moves into second place. Grasping for his name, the commentator suggests it is an athlete from Burundi. He is wrong, but the man in white is accustomed to being invisible. Only when the man pulls alongside Kiplimo and passes him approaching the finish line does the commentator realise his error, correctly identifying a life-changing victory for Dominic Lobalu.

Where most athletes have their national flag next to their name, Lobalu has the letters ART, denoting the Athlete Refugee Team. But he does not represent them. Nor does he represent South Sudan, the country of his birth, or Switzerland, the country where he now lives. Lobalu is stateless; a refugee and asylum seeker with no official nationality.

At this moment, all that can be forgotten. For now, he is just a man running the race of his life, beating some of the sport’s biggest names and catapulting himself on to a stage of which he has only ever dreamed. “That is a transformation from being an also-ran on the international scene to being a superstar,” concludes the commentator.

Dominic Lobalu is dreaming of a place at next year’s Olypmics: “I want to be an example to show that whatever you want to do, put it in your heart and do it with your whole passion.” Photograph: Live Media Publishing Group/Alamy

The 24-year-old Lobalu is the first refugee athlete to turn professional, but his lack of national identity means he cannot compete at this summer’s world championships or next year’s Olympics. While the wheels of an asylum application grind painfully slowly, his destiny remains stubbornly out of reach, robbing him of the thing he desires most.

“I’m just telling myself I’m born to suffer,” he says, flashing a broad smile that contrasts alarmingly with the words coming out of his mouth in a new documentary film entitled The Right to Race, released for World Refugee Day on Tuesday 20 June . “Everywhere I go, I expect tough. So it comes, it is normal. But I’m having a good life.”

Born in the remote village of Chukudum in what would later become South Sudan, Lobalu was nine when he lost his parents in the brutal civil war that preceded independence from Sudan and fled over the nearby border to Kenya, where he became separated from his four sisters. Via an orphanage just north of Nairobi, he was offered a place at the nearby Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation – an athletics training camp, which forms the basis of the Athlete Refugee Team.

He competed for them at the 2017 London world championships – “It was my first time on a plane, it was like I’m dreaming” – finishing only in front of a lone Dutch runner, who had tripped and fallen. Yet two years later, he took the snap decision to abscond after a race in Geneva, in part due to discontent at life in the athletics camp, in part in search of better things. He prefers not to dwell on it, saying: “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t like to remind myself what I have passed through.”

Lobalu had no idea what lay in wait when he left the team hotel before dawn on a chilly May morning in 2019 with no money in his pocket and only the clothes on his back. “The situation I came from was hard,” he says. “So it’s better for me to try new things.”

Some months later, a Swiss secondary school teacher and part-time athletics coach, Markus Hagmann, received a call from an immigration officer informing him there was an asylum seeker who wanted to run. “Within the first 200m I could see something in him,” says Hagmann. “But his body and mind were marked from his journey – there was a lot of work to do to make him feel comfortable.” Lobalu says: “It took a lot for me to trust him because the life I had before I didn’t trust anybody. It took time.”

Dominic Lobalu, shown here in scenes from the documentary ‘The Right to Race’, is the only refugee athlete to turn professional. Photograph: Eurosport

Together, they worked in St Gallen, where Lobalu was placed in an apartment along with two other asylum seekers, sowing the seeds for a spectacular 2022 breakthrough year that included victory in Stockholm on his Diamond League debut and a time quicker than the European record at the Copenhagen half marathon. But he does not yet count as European.

skip past newsletter promotion

after newsletter promotion

Now he is no longer permitted to compete for the Athlete Refugee Team, World Athletics is sympathetic to his plight but the global governing body say it cannot allow him to race at major competitions as a neutral for fear of encouraging other refugees to follow his path.

Tessa Sanderson: how the first Black British woman to win an Olympic title fought her way to the top

Read more

“His story, some of it is frustrating, some of it is sad,” says the governing body’s spokesperson Jackie Brock-Doyle. “We’re not without a huge amount of empathy for him. But it’s important that there are processes that we have that he needs to fit within to get what he wants across the line.”

Waiting for Swiss citizenship is an impossibly long process, so the Swiss Athletics Federation has applied to World Athletics for a transfer of allegiance. Any timeframe is unknown, leaving Lobalu dreaming of a place at next year’s Olympics, where he would be a medal contender.

“It is very important because there are other people where I come from whose life is too hard,” he says. “Some will have that talent but because of where they come from they don’t believe it. I want to be an example to show them that whatever you want to do, put it in your heart and do it with your whole passion.”

And if the bureaucratic chips do not fall in his favour, he will simply continue running wherever he can: “I can breathe well, and I have freedom. I enjoy my life. I am happy.”

The Right to Race screens on Eurosport 1 on Tuesday, World Refugee Day, and is available to watch on www.RighttoRace.com

V 13 N. 62 Harvey Glance US Olympic Sprinter and Gold Medalist R.I.P.

 

Bill Schnier wrote this moving comment about Harvey Glance and his coach /mentor Mel Rosen at Auburn.  This is followed by the USATF report about Mr. Glance's history.   George

So sorry to hear about the death of Harvey Glance.  He was a fine person and one who ran during my early days of coaching.  His first Olympic Games took place during our honeymoon to Montreal in 1976 and he continued to compete for a long time, quite unusual for a sprinter.  He eventually switched to coaching, doing equally well in that profession.  He served as sprint and hurdle coach in 2008 when David Payne and Mary Wineberg captured Olympic medals in Beijing.  He was short and extremely explosive, the perfect person to lead off relays. 

   I got to know his coach, Mel Rosen, when we both were clinicians at the Olympic Development Clinic in 1979 at the University of Rhode Island, the week Lorraine was born in Bloomington.  Mel was a truly humorous person who described himself as a small Jewish man from Brooklyn who was living in a small Southern town.  Mel was always so kind to me but then he was the same way to everyone.  The combination of Harvey Glance, Mel Rosen, and many others made Auburn a major T&F power for a long time.  They will both be missed.

And a really nice memory from Geoff Pietsch in Florida:

 I have a still vivid memory of Harvey Glance from the 1976 Olympic Trials. At midweek, at a quiet moment several minutes before the 200 meter heats began, I was sitting in Hayward Field's East Grandstand midway on the backstretch. Harvey Glance, in his sweats, walked by, heading towards the 200 meter start. The  moderate crowd began to applaud. Glance looked around in obvious puzzlement, clearly wondering what was going on that they were applauding. And then the realization clearly hit him. These knowledgeable Hayward Field Track fans were applauding to honor him for winning the 100 meter Trials. He was an underdog in the 100. A very young sprinter, just emerging. But they knew who he was. And what he had accomplished. And clearly it touched him.

USATF MOURNS PASSING OF OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST HARVEY GLANCE

Olympic gold medalist and World Championships men's head coach Harvey Glance died June 12th after suffering a heart attack earlier in the week. He was 66.
 
Glance was one of the top sprinters of his era and twice tied the world record in the 100 meters with 9.9 clockings in 1976. He ran the leadoff leg on the U.S. 4x100m relay that won gold at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, and 11 years later in Rome he ran the opening leg on the victorious Team USATF 4x100m relay squad at the World Championships.
 
A high school star at Phenix City (Alabama) Central, Glance won three events at the 1975 Alabama 4A State Meet, setting state records in all three. Less than two days after that triple victory he signed with Auburn University and legendary head coach Mel Rosen. That turned out to be one of Rosen's best signings ever, as the young star sprinted to NCAA indoor gold in the 60 yard dash as a freshman and then captured double gold in the 100m and 200m at the NCAA outdoor championships.
 
Two weeks later, the 19-year-old Glance surged past Houston McTear halfway through the 100m final at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, winning in 10.11 to earn his first international team berth. In Montreal, Glance won his heats in the first three rounds of the 100m but was unable to catch eventual champion Hasely Crawford of Trinidad in the final and had to settle for fourth. That energized him for the relay, and the United States quartet of Glance, Johnny Jones, Millard Hampton and Steve Riddick romped to a convincing win in 38.33 over East Germany and the Soviet Union.
 
Repeating as NCAA 100m champion in 1977, Glance also picked up bronze medals in that event at the 1978 and 1979 meets. He also anchored the Auburn foursome to runner-up finishes in the 4x100m relay in 1978 and 1979. After finishing. his Auburn career, Glance earned silver in the 100m at the 1979 Pan American Games and ran the second leg on the U.S. 4x100m relay that took gold.
 
At the 1980 Olympic Trials, with nothing on the line but pride due to the U.S. boycott of the Moscow Games, Glance took second in the 100m in 10.27, just .01 behind Auburn's new star dashman, Stanley Floyd. That summer, Glance helped the U.S. all-star team to wins against Japan and China in dual meets.
 
Four years later, Glance once again made a bid for the Olympic team at Los Angeles, finishing seventh in the 100m in a strong headwind in the Coliseum. Always a reliable relay man, Glance ran leadoff for the winning U.S. 4x100m team at the 1985 World Cup and took on third-leg duties for the victorious Goodwill Games squad in 1986. he capped off his career with relay golds at the 1987 Pan American Games and World Championships.
 
Moving into coaching after his retirement from competition, Glance took over as head men's and women's coach at his alma mater from 1991-96, and then moved to archrival Alabama in 1997, heading the men's program until his retirement in 2011. He led the Crimson Tide to an NCAA Indoor Championships runner-up team finish in 2002 and produced a slew of all-Americans and SEC contenders during his tenure.
 
Along the way, Glance became a respected international coach and administrator, serving as head men's coach for Team USATF at the 1999 Pan American Games and then as head men's coach at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. He also served as a men's assistant coach for the 2008 Olympic team covering the sprints and hurdles and was an assistant men's coach at the 2006 World Junior (U20) Championships.
 
Continuing to coach one of his greatest Alabama athletes after retiring from the university, Glance guided Kirani James of Grenada to Olympic gold in the 400m in 2012 after winning the World Championships in 2011. James also earned silver in the 400m at the 2016 Games and bronze at Tokyo in 2021 and was the silver medalist last summer at the World Championships in Eugene.
 
Glance was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. He is survived by his wife, Booker Lynne Graves, and one son, Walter.

V 13 N. 61 Comparing the Diamond and the NCAA

Well, all good things must come to an end and both the NCAA in Austin and the Diamond League provided the best imaginable entertainment in a non Olympic year for track and field affecionados.

We'll leave the meet analysis to others more capable of those things.   The team results were:

Women   1. Texas 83   2. Florida  51  3. Arkansas  46  4. Oregon 44  5. Tex A&M 36  

                6. Kentucky 28  7. LSU  26    8. Nebraska 25   9. Harvard 23  10. Georgia  19

Men         1. Florida 57   2. Arkansas 53   3. Stanford 44   4. LSU  43   5. Arizona St. 41

                6. Texas Tech 34.5  7. Georgia 28  8. 'Bama 27  9. Washington 26.5  10. BYU 22.5

All NCAA RESULTS  Link  Too many to print out for you.  Just clik on this link.  

Not all events in the NCAA are covered in any one Diamond League event, but there is some overlap where both institutions can be compared.  Here are the ones I could find for the Paris Diamond League events run on the same weekend as the NCAA championships.  Remember not on same track, not same weather, not same cultural environment.  Do wonder what happened to Katelyn Touhy.  Can't win 'em all.  

Can't say it all went smoothly  Did have one problem in Austin.   Our correspondent got an UBER ride to the meet with some guy said his name was Billy Bob.  They paid extra for parking near the track but were too close to the 'call back' official.  Billy Bob wants the door on his pickup truck replaced.  Rather than negotiating with UBER we're starting a Go Fund Me page for Billy Bob.  Here's a photo of the door on that pickup.  P.S. No one was hurt in the parking lot as far as we know.   

One comment came in on NCAA meet from Darryl Taylor so far.  Others will be posted on this site as they arrive. 

I'm having a T&F "High" after these past few days. It just seldom gets any better than this! 

I've found a "new" 800 favorite in Will Sumner after his 1:44.2 win in Texas. No playing 

around, just balls out from the gun. I hope he can restore the US to some type of favor 

on the world stage. Barely out of HS and he is such a gutsy performer. Rest up and get 

ready for the US Nationals!  Great week-end!  Darryl

Right, Darryl,

Sumner had the courage to take it out and dare anyone to run with him.  No one could.

PB by over a second.  The Diamond League men's 800 with seven guys in the 1:43s and

a blanket finish had the look of  a sprint race covering the first five lanes.

All I know is "Uncle Phil" won't put up with this another year.   The Oregon men weren't 

even in the top 5     Mike W.

We survived 21 hr drive (brother Doug alternated tank of gas/400mi) from Ohio to Austin, 100’ heat, and daily gorging on 

bbq (Kreuz, Opie’s, it's all good). and Austin traffic.
Wow, what a meet. unprecedented depth in sprints, emergence of freshman 800 talent Sumner, 

virtual wire to wire 5k run by Valby, Collegiate Record in TJ by Moore, Collegiate Record in 4x4 

by Florida, 1-2 finish by Florida in 400, 1 and 2 finish by U of Florida  in men's and women's 

meets.   (Yeah, I live in Gainesville).

Driving back to Gainesville overnight.  Doug riding Greyhound from Florida to Lima, OH after 

couple days rest.  Bruce Kritzler

Only two real track nuts would do what you did.  Hats off to Bruce and Doug Kritzler.  If anyone 

has any questions 

about Eastern United States, they need to ask you two.  Bill Schnier

 I watched parts of the NCAA and none of the Diamond League, so I don't have much to say.  However, the NCAA 

was primarily a 6-way meet dominated by athletes from other countries so it was a bit hard to get excited about any 

local presence.  The Big 10 and PAC 12 hardly scored.  If you don't recruit the top athletes worldwide, you just can't 

compete.  The same is true for Canadian Football recruiting Americans so they have capped it so there is more of a 

Canadian presence.  In reality, it is worse in golf and tennis where almost everyone in the NCAA comes from 

elsewhere.    Bill Schnier

So  comparing times at both meets.  We extended placings in some events due to interest

 in certain athletes.    English measures calculated by myself if there is error on the inch fractions it 

is my fault.  This done by request from an unnamed official in the Pacific Northwest. George

5000M Women

Diamond League               1. Faith Kipyegon Kenya            NCAA  Parker Valby  Florida

                                                       14:05.2 WR                            15:30.57

800 Meters  Women

Diamond League        1.  Keely Hodgkinson  GBR           NCAA    1. Rose LSU

      Time                           1:55.77                                                       1:59.83

Discus Women         

Diamond League       1.  Valerie Allman  USA                       NCAA    1. Van Klinken Oregon

                                             69.04m       226' 6"                                  65.55m     215'

Pole Vault Women   

Diamond League        1. Kennedy   AUS                                NCAA   1.  Fixen  Virginia Tech

                                             4.77m    15' 7 1/2"                                  4.45m    14'  7"

                                    2. Chevrier   FRA                                 NCAA   2. Campbell Washington    

                                          4.71m   15'  5 1/4"                                     4.45m   14'  7"

                                    3.  Moon USA                                       NCAA  3. Hirata  South Dakota

                                           4.71m    15' 5 1/4"                                     4.40m   14'  5 1/4"

                                     4. Murto  FIN                                       NCAA   4. Hanson Arizona St.

                                            4.61m  15'  1 1/2"                                      4.30m  14' 1 1/4"

                                     5. Morris  USA                                      NCAA 5. Horn   High Point

                                            4.61m  15/  1  1/2"                                     4.30m  14'  1 1/4"

Shot Put Women

Diamond League          1. Dongmo  PORT            NCAA   1. Johannsen  Nebraska

                                          19.72m  64/ 8 1/4"                      19.28m  63' 3"

                                      2. Chase    USA               NCAA     2. Van Klinken  Oregon

                                          19.43m  63' 9"                                18.45m  60' 6"

                                       3.  Ewen    USA                      NCAA  3. Santana  UNLV

                                          19.26m  63' 2 1/4"                          18.37m   60' 3 1/4"

Hammer Women

Diamond League            1. Fantini   ITALY                     NCAA   1. Ratcliffe  Harvard

                                           71.21m  233' 7 1/2"                                73.62m  241'  6 1/2"

High Jump Women      

Diamond League             1.  Olyslagers    AUS                NCAA    1. Charity Griffith  Ball State

                                             2.00m  6' 6 3/4"                                   1.93m  6' 3 3/4"

                                         2 Vashti Cunningham USA       NCAA    2. Distin TX A&M

                                             1.97m  6' 5 1/2"                                    1.87m  6' 1 1/2"

200 M  Women

Diamond League             1.  Gabby Thomas  USA                 NCAA     1. Julien Alfred Texas

                                                      22. 05                                                       21.73

                                         2.  Abby Steiner   USA                  NCAA   2. McKenzie Long Ole Miss

                                                    23.34                                                           21.88

                                         3. Marie Josee Talou  IV Coast      NCAA   3 Kevona Davis  Texas

                                                    22.34                                                         22.02

400 M  Women  

Diamond League              1. Marileidy Palimo Dom Rep       NCAA     1. Rhasidat Adellee  Texas

                                                     49.12                                                               49.20

                                          2. Sidney Mclaughlin Levrone USA  NCAA  2. Brittog Wilson Arkansas

                                                     49.71                                                                49.64

100M Men

Diamond League          1. Noah Lyles  USA                    NCAA     1. Courtney Lindsey  Tex Tech

                                                     9.97                                                           9.98

                                      2. Omanyala  Kenya                   NCAA      2. Godson Oghenebrume LSU

                                                      9.98                                                          9.90

110 HH Men             

   Diamond League        1. Conrad Holloway  USA          NCAA      1.  Lemonius  Arkansas

                                                     12.98                                                           13.24

                                       2. Karou-Mathey  France            NCAA      2.  Wilson Houston  Houston

                                                      13.09                                                           13.26

400 IH  Men  

  Diamond League          1. C.J. Allen  USA                       NCAA      1. Chris Robinson Alabama

                                                      47.92                                                           48.12

                                                                                                              2. Code Long  Alabama

                                                                                                                           48.53

Long Jump Men

   Diamond League        1. Tentoglou  Greece                 NCAA     1. Mclead  Arkansas

                                          8.13m  26' 8"                                            8.26m  27' 1"

                                                                                                          2.  Pinneck  Arkansas

                                                                                                             8.15m  26' 8 3/4"

800 Men

Diamond League       1.  Wanyonie  Kenya                                      1. Sumner     Georgia

                                              1:43.27                                                         1:44.26

                                   2.  Arop     Canada                                          2. Bizimana Texas

                                               1:43.30                                                         1:45.74

3000 Steeple Men  

  Diamond League                  1. Girma  Ethiopia           NCAA     1. Rocks  BYU

                                                        7:52.11 WR                                     8:26.17

Nine events are comparable for women   Diamond League 7 wins    vs.  NCAA  2 wins

Seven  events are comparable for men     Diamond League  6 wins   vs.  NCAA  1 win

George, et al,

 

As I have often said and written, measurements in metrics are meaningless to me.  I can appreciate a 75-foot shot put, etc, but even though I scored at the genius level in mathematics during my college days, I cannot convert metrics to feet and inches, except within a range of several feet either way.  The result is that i don't even look at results in metrics or watch the event on TV.   My several friends with an interest in track and field all agree.   Stupid us!  But it  is what it is.   I don't think it is an age thing, either.  I have two grandchildren, both straight A students in college, and neither is schooled in metrics and cannot convert a 75-foot shot or 7-10 high jump from meters to feet and inches. 

Michael Tymn

To Anyone Still Reading This:

I responded to Michael Tymn's email above thinking it had come from Mike Waters.  Here is that repartee:

   Mike,  l will deal with this later. Currently on my bike in the woods.  But responses are being conjured   .  George

        

Mike,  

In response to your lament (need i use the term 'whine'?)  about metric measurements,  I rose from my bed two hours early to make all those conversions for you on the blog posting which I hope you will appreciate.  It makes me wonder if when you are measuring those javelin throws in metric if you turn the tape over at each reading to confirm what some of us already know?  Are you aware of how to convert metric to English measure?   Do you know the formula for metric to Fahrenheit?  Take metric measure  (Celsius) double it and add 30 degrees.  Thus if the reading is  6 Celsius  you double to 12, add 30 and you get 42 degrees Fahrenheit.  This is why it is so good to live in a metric country like Canada, because a metric six pack of beer has 42 beers in it.  Why you are living in such an uncivilised country is beyond me,  although I must admit it took me 70 years to draw that conclusion about beer.  It should not be anymore difficult for the US to change over than it was for the Swedes to take up metric driving going from the left side of the road to the right side on September 3, 1967.  No one got killed that first day because there was a big educational process leading up to the date.  However when they started drinking metric six packs some problems had to be dealt with quickly.

It is our job to please our customers and deal with their foibles.and so I hope that this email will do the job.  I refer you to an audio-visual explanation to this from one of Canada's more astute teams of scientists.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04u58ifxmRA

And don't forget the legal definition of the lightness of speed in a vacuum,

commonly denoted c, is a universal physical constant that is exactly equal to 299,792,458 metres per second (approximately 300,000 kilometres per second; 186,000 miles per second; 671 million miles per hour).  According to the special theory of relativity, c is the upper limit for the speed at which conventional matter or energy (and thus any signal carrying information) can travel through space.

Your humble servant in The Great White North.

LOL! LOL !    Okay, George here's the deal.   We don't use tape.  We use laser.   Oh course I work the college meets.  They may pull tape in high school.

 

When the laser does break down, my crew chief Dick ( for the big meets) has a tape that already is set with the metric conversations    I've only had to do that once at a western oregon meet       

Thanks for all the "hard" work

 

Mike  

I should have known.   All that work for nada.George

"It shouldn't hurt to be in the modern era of track"      

 

                           or

 

"I just wasn't made for these times"    Mike W.

I prefer the life and death struggle of standing on the javelin pitch, trying not to leave a carpet stain to make those measurements.  George

A bit like the Roman Coliseum.  Oh well, modern toys for modern times. George

 

George all you have to do now is stand up with the prism   a good laser person will get the mark in seconds    

The only people "bending over" are the retrievers pulling the jav out of the ground.

Mike W.