V14 N. 56 Cross Country on a Beach? Are You Serious?

 

The following story has been purloined from the pages of the Texas A&M Corpus Christi  Athletics site.

I put this here because I have never heard of a cross country meet being held on a beach, but by jove here it is.   

I did hear of a one hour decathlon on a beach from old friend Phil Scott when he was in San Diego.

Imagine doing all ten events in the sand within an hour.

 The Islanders men's team got a perfect 15 against Texas State Rio Grande Valley in their home opener.   

The women's team came up against a tougher foe in SMU as well as Rio Grande Valley.    

The second reason I put this in today's blog is the granddaughter of my former Oklahoma teammate Walt 

Mizell ,  Micah Mizell ran her first varsity race for the Islanders and was their #3 finishing in tenth place. 

In the day when the original sport of cross country has been primarily taken out of the country and put on 

golf courses in America, Texas A&M CC has gone to the local terrain and put it on the beach.  It seems that 

timing of the start is important when beach racing as the tide seems to be out in the photos and some hard 

sand is available to the runners.  I only wonder why none of the runners seem to be barefoot.  Reminds me 

a bit of the pictures of John Walker on the Kiwi beaches in the 1970's.    George

From TA&MCC website:

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Starting off the season in the sand, the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi men's and women's cross country teams hosted the Opener at the Seashore Friday morning and got off on the right foot at the National Seashore.
 
In similar fashion to last season, sophomore Mathayo Kiptoo Bundotich won his race in the men's 6k with a 19:32.87 team as A&M-Corpus Christi's top five times crossed first consecutively going head-to-head with UTRGV.
 
Bundotich's time ranks him sixth all-time in the program record book for the men's 6k.
 
Newcomer Landon Blankenship crossed second, clocking a 19:42.19 time. Senior Emil Hajjaj followed with a 19:44.58 time in the third place, while newcomers Ewan Wheelwright and Diego Canto rounded out the top-five to secure the perfect score, with UTRGV's first runner not crossing the finish until after the 20-minute mark.
 

 
The women also raced against UTRGV as well as regionally ranked SMU.  Freshman Alicia Finnis was the Islanders' top finisher in her collegiate debut, finishing third in the women's 4k with a 14:26.55 time.

 
She makes a mark already on the program, as her time in the women's 4k ranks her seventh all-time in school history.
 

Sophomore Deandra Ibarra ran a ninth-place finish in the opener with a 15:20.38 while newcomer Micah Mizell closed out the top-10 clocking a 15:22.39 as the women's top-three finishers.

See Comments below for an eyewitness account:

                      Post Race Celebration for 15 Point Perfect Score.   Any Sharks in the Water?

                                       A few more pictures from this unique university:

                                        I'm sure they have a hurricane evacuation plan.

                                                       Interesting Classrooms  

                 American Literature Class:   Reliving Hemingway's "Old Man and the Sea"

                                                               Commuting to Class

                                              Seriously,  I want to go to grad school here.

Comment from Grandpa Walter who witnessed this race.

Actually  Padre Island made a pretty good cross country course—an out-and-back trek, which they ran twice. Runners were free to find the surface they wanted, as long as they went through the chutes at each end. Spectators were able to see the runners at mid-course as well as start and finish. I didn’t hear my grand-daughter complain about the surface, or any of the other runners for that matter. 

Padre Island has to be the absolute flattest XC course in the world!  Not a foot of rise from start to end! Well, maybe tied for the flattest with every other beach in the world that’s runnable.(Is that a word?)

I guess some runners could have veered  off to get closer to the water and thereby create  a small uphill to get back onto the track used by the pack, but otherwise you could test your bubble level on it. 

Except for the fact that this race was an odd distance, I can see a runner trying for a PR there. Zero altitude gain. Fairly good surface; no hills. And a rare Corpus Christi day with no wind!  The only thing that could make runners  faster would be a favorable wind that changed directions 180 degrees every time they made their three u-turns. 

George, you remember those days we ran from Norman down to the Canadian River bottom on those longer runs. And how flat that river bottom was once we got on it.   This was just like that, except it had a bunch of water on one side, and the Canadian River bottom rarely had any water to speak  of, just miles and miles of that red Oklahoma sand. 

Seeing her run that first college race reminded me of that first college race I ran, a dual meet against Kansas on the “old golf course” in Norman.  Lee Smith and I were the only two to break into the KU line-up and prevent a sweep.  But I didn’t know that then, all I knew was that a bunch of KU runners beat me, and two of them had cheated right in front of me  by cutting across on one of the tight curves on the course.  It was a surprise (and kinda disappointing) to me to see them do that. But it didn’t affect the outcome; I wasn’t going to catch either  of them no matter whether they  stayed on course or not.

But I digress. . .

Hope you are doing well, and keep up the great work with the blog!

Walt

Other comments:

In reference to the mixed drink 'Sex on the Beach'.  vs. XC on a Beach

I've had "sex in a pan". Wonderful desert    Mike Waters, Corvallis, OR. I DID THE FIRST, (Sex on the Beach)  NEVER THE SECOND (XC on the Beach). - JT    I think he is referring to the drink S.O.B.  not the other.  ed. George, A couple of comments on the recent Once Upon a Time in the Vest.Not on the beach, but  very near the beach: UCSB Lagoon course.  I ran the course once (a week after the Santa  Barbara Marathon); it is a beautiful course.  I wonder if they still have that XC course.   Just a bit of separation from the beach.  I used to live 3.5 miles from campus, and I ran to  and from my apartment every day.  When the tide was out I ran most of those 3.5 miles on  the beach.  One time I counted over 100 dead squids on my run in.Jerry Siebert.   I was a grad student at Cornell in chemistry and our building linked with the physics  building.  Jerry was a postdoc at the time and I used to see him in his lab.  In those days  many of the physics grad students and professors ran at noon time and were part of the  Finger Lakes Running Club.  It is curious that Jerry never joined us.  Apparently, he had his  fill of running.  One of our running partners was David Lee, who won the Nobel Prize  after I graduated. Don Betowski UF Gators used to start season with a beach run (race?) Bruce Kritzler I coached the St. Joseph's High School cross-country team of Alameda, California in 1963.   We used a local park bordering the beach.  Half the course was on the beach and the other  half in the park.  In leaving the beach area, the competitors had to climb a wall.    The students seemed to really like this aspect of it.  Only wimps didn't like it.   See photo attached.   That's Bill Fairwell, my top runner, in the photo.  He went on to win the league championship at  Bellarmine.  Mike Tymn   Mike Tymn      Mike, I remember those Converse shoes. Was there sand at the bottom of the  wall in case they fell off? George,   Yes, there was sand below and the wall wasn't as high as it seems to look in the  photo. I'd estimate about 6 and a half feet, but the cross bar they grabbed onto  was only about six feet from the sand.    None of the competitors had trouble jumping to  the cross-bar to get over it.  The beach was on San Francisco Bay.   They ran on the  shore for most of it, but about 100 yards of it was in beach sand.     The championship race won by Fairwell was on the day Kennedy  was assassinated.  There was much confusion as to whether  the race would be called off, but they decided to go ahead with it.     Mike George,   An additional thought.  Prior to the running boom, I don't think most road runners cared about  times.  It was all about place or at least doing it faster than the preceding year.    Courses weremeasured with car odometers and usually short of the advertised distance, but many were odd distances, such as 5.5 miles or 7.6 miles, etc.    I recall races in which the best guys ran in a pack for the first half of the race and  didn't really start running until the last half of the race. It was more  so like that in the marathon.    Mike George, Have done a lot of beach running, having coached at UNCWilmington and College of Coastal GA.  SE USA beaches are great for running at low tide, with firm, flat sand similar to dirt roads.  High tide not so good, as beach shrinks and sand is much softer. In the heat of summer, there is always a breeze on the beach (nothing to block the wind?)  and usually feels 10 degrees cooler than running inland. Bruce Kritzler Loved your piece on the XC beach race.  Nice college as well.    This reminded me of the Sauble Beach Relays, an intrasquad meet held at the end of a week's training at Sauble  Beach, Ontario from 1969-74.  We ranked everyone from top to bottom, then assigned teams for the shuttle relays,  upand down the beach for a distance of two miles per leg.  Setting up the teams was always intense and the  Relays themselves provided bragging rights the entire cross country season. Trotwood Madison HS northwest of Dayton, Ohio,  pre-season cross country camp.   Bill Schnier coached there in 1974. How many of you old coaches took your teams 350-400 miles across an international border  to pre-season back then?  Bill went  on to coach at U. of  Cincinnati for over thirty years. Ed.                      Harvey Woodard  Sauble Beach 1974                                    Sauble Beach             Sauble Beach winning relay team 1974                        Judy and Steve Price timing Harvey Woodard and                                                                                                                     Gary Lowe            Lake Huron- Sauble Beach from above                                                       ....and ground level From L.J. Cohen George, great to see my home town, Corpus Christi, mentioned in your blog. We have a very unique race  run in May each year. It’s called Beach to Bay. It’s a 26.2 mile  marathon with 6 man relay teams starting  in the sand on Padre Island and finishing on our bay front. It attracts over 2,000 teams along with some  individuals running a solo marathon. Here’s a link should any of your readers want to put a team together  and run Beach to Bay.  https://beachtobayrelay.com/about/the-race/ Amazing how many responses this post about a dual and triangular cross country meet has created.   Maybe when it crossesthe International Dateline we'll get some responses from the Kiwi's and Aussies.   Put down your pints of Foster's,  lads,  and get back to the office and have your Sheilah type it up for you.  Ed. om

V 14 N. 55 More Ramblings from Ancient Times by Ancients Who Have Passed On

 I'm still in the recovery from the incredible Olympics,  breakdancing and  3 on 3 basketball notwithstanding.  I am finding a way to report on ancient track and field history despite the world records by McLaughlin-Verone, Duplantis, and Ingebrigtsen, and Cole Hocker   and so many others and from here in British Columbia those two Canadian hammer throwers, both from our province.  Those performances and many, many more from Paris have been well documented, so since this is my article I choose another path.  

When Roy Mason and I started this blog almost 15 years ago, our silent partner was Steve Price, former coach of the Kettering Striders, U. of Dayton, Bowling Green State, from where he retired and then took up a commute job helping with the U. of Findlay track and field program  continuing to produce some very exceptional athletes.   A few of you knew Steve, but I bet you forgot his newsletter 'Kingsnake'.  He was an amateur herpetologist, which once almost cost us both our lives in the backwaters of Zimbabwe, but that's another story.    I recently found an old copy of 'Kingsnake' which I'll share with you today and then add a few more things as I see fit.  

Steve passed away about two years ago, having dealt with cancer of the throat for over twenty-five years.  But this newsletter reminded me of the richness of his life and love of stories and people, and track and field, bluegrass music, and a lot of other stuff.    You'll see some of that if you read on.  I will annotate a few of his comments in bold type.  Throughout, Steve mentions getting visitors.  That's because he was not able to travel away from the house most of his last 7 or 8 years due to his illness.  Still he could play a mean piano or pick a great bluegrass piece.  Just couldn't talk or sing anymore.

                                 Bowling Green Women      1998 Mid America Conf.  XC Champs

Kingsnake # 16

4-3-14 Early April as we all await the coming of the Spring.....and a rebirth of all the outside greenery. Here on Marymont Drive,( Piqua, Ohio) we certainly have an abundance of flowers and blossoms that make going for a walk an adventure for our eyes and noses. There is a lilac bush right next to the front door that is a pleasure to sit by.....Come join me next spring.

A rabbit runs and hops and lives fifteen (15) years. A tortoise doesn't run and does mostly nothing, yet it may live one hundred and fifty (150) years.........and you tell me to exercise....I don't think so.

We watched "Jane Eyre".... Should have been in black and white.l

4-4-14 Back in 1880, one Frank " Black Dan" Hart won the O'Leary Belt Walking Championship before a packed house at Madison Square Gardens. In what was a big deal in those bygone days, Black Dan walked 565 miles in 142 hours. The track at MSG was ten (10) or eleven (11) laps to the mile......no, you figure it out.

When the white missionaries came to Africa, they had the bible and we had to the land. They said "Let us pray".We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the bible and they had the land-Desmond Tutu.


4-12-14 To the All Ohio track championships at the University of Cincinnati. A nice warm and sunny day greeted us ! I sat on a grassy knoll overlooking the track with Brother Greg, Marc Arce, Bill Schnier, Tom Wright, Tom Cope and Phil Scott.......couldn't ask for better company.



4-15-14 I got too excited too soon. IT SNOWED TODAY.......damn.
This was the first anniversary of the Boston Marathon blowup and the day after the Lunar eclipse.

Actual kids excuses for missing school:
Please excuse Leslie from jim today, she is administrating .
Please excuse Tommy from being absent yesterday. He had diarrhea and his boots leaked.
Please excuse Gloria from being absent yesterday. She had the shits                                            .Dear School, Please excuse Johnny for being absent January 28,29,30,31,32 and 33

 

A line from the Canadian income tax form: If you entered an amount on line b, enter on line j the amount from line g excluding the proportionate amount on line b included in the amount at line g. The proportionate amount is calculated as follows: (line b/line c) x line c.      This is why it it harder to get a gun in Canada.

4-6-14 Chris to baby shower for Lindsey. She should deliver in ten (10) weeks and its number four (4) for Lindsey and Bubba......number eleven (11) for Chris and me.

"And this is good old Boston
The home of the bean and the cod
Where the Lowell's speak only to the Cabots
And the Cabots speak Yiddish by God " !   Jewish Civorents

4-16-14 All the grandkids came for their annual visit/Easter egg hunt. Chris took our oldest grandson Cade to the YMCA where, as a seventh grader, he dunked a basketball for the first time. At night, seven (7) of the kids were "watching" TV.....five (5) of them on cell phones.  (The aforementioned grandson Cade Stover is now playing in his first year in the NFL with Houston.  Five years at Ohio State with a degree in Agriculture and a year of grad school under his belt.  His cousin is a Buckeye freshman this year with the team.)


4-20-14 It has been said that if you go to a Shell station, press the button on the side of the air pump three (3) times, The pump will start without having to insert coins.....nah, I haven't tried it.....just passing it on.

"America is the only country where a significant proportion of the population believes that pro wrestling is real and the moon landing was faked "      David Letterman

4-26-14 At the Penn Relays, Findlay hammer thrower Justin Welch, won his speciality and took home a gold watch as his prize......way to go Justin.

Listening to music literally changes your brains' perception of time and reduces the amount of time you think you are waiting. (wasting?)

4-28-14 Mike Butsch my visitor for the day.



Fact-In 1895, there were only two (2) cars on the road in Ohio, and the drivers of these cars crashed into each other..... believe that ?

The " world record" for the mile beer run was broken today by Canadian James Nielson. To do so, he had to chug a beer from the can before,  during and after four (4) laps on a 400 meter track. That's downing four(4) twelve ounce cans of beer with at least a five percent alcohol content......and no vomiting.
Nielson's time was 4:57 and the first time anyone has broken the five minute barrier !  Impressive when you think about it.

4-30-14 The GLIAC conference, which Findlay is a part of, starts today at Grand Valley University in Allendale, Michigan...where the national meet will be held in late May.

5-1-14 David Rapp home from Colorado and my visitor for the day. Our conversation reminded me of the adage: The older I get, the better I was.

I can eat a bowl of alphabet soup and s--- out a better argument than that !

5-11-14 Chris to Lindsey's house and I stayed home and felt sorry for myself.  Today is Mothers Day and my mother has been gone now six years. It's a rare day when I don't think of her at least once.

Being popular on Facebook is like setting at the cool table in a cafeteria at the mental hospital.... Didn't compose this, just passing it on.

5-12-14 The other day I heard a guy complaining about how expensive his wedding is going to be. He is going to really be pissed when he finds out how much his divorce is going to cost.

My mother-in- law is coming. I had to clear out half of my closet so she would have a place to hang upside down and sleep.

5-16-14 Bill and Kathy Schnier are my visitors today. We go back a long way !

A few words of wisdom to get this thing wrapped up :
"We didn't lose the game, we just ran out of time".   Vince Lombardi

At my age, rolling out of bed is no problem....getting up off the floor is another story

"Choose being kind over being right and you will be right every time"  Richard Carlson


The one function that TV news performs very well is that when there is no news, we give if to you with the same emphasis as if there were"  David Brinkley

Accept what is, let go of what was and have faith in what will be.

Hello Carolk Inskeep, wherever this post finds you..........hiking on the Appalachian Trail as I write all this nonsense.  Carol is one of Steve's former athletes with the Kettering Striders.)

Steve

                                                     Steve on guitar (white shirt, left)

We were travelling over to Southern Indiana on back roads on our way to a bluegrass festival when we saw these people gathered in a park shelter and stopped to listen.  Steve got out his guitar and joined them and was welcomed.  Didn't know a single person but he was taken in by strangers.   Another typical afternoon with the guy.

                                       Roy Mason and Steve in front of Paul's Bar in Piqua, OH.  Don't ask why                                               thecan't stand up anymore.

Going a tad more heavily into track and field history,  I thought I would share some of the following book with you, a full report of the 1952 Olympic Games by the British Athletic Association.  I'm not sure exactly when I acquired it, but I think it came from John Cobley who wrote the great running blog Racingpast.ca which is still out there.     I've decided that this piece is long enough already and will just leave the cover of the 1952 story here at the bottom to tantalize you into thinking about the next post.

                    Cover: That 7/6 is not the over and under,  it's 7 Shillings and 6 Pence for the  uninitiated.

                           

                            

                   

                       

                                       

V 14 N. 54 My High School Deserved Better, Maybe......

 August 18, 2024

Still coming out of my Olympics viewing overdose.   It's only been a week since the women's marathon and closing ceremonies.  A few but not many controversies, like the women's gymnastics bronze that was lost on a technicality, four seconds late on an appeal.  Those appeals need to be written in advance with just a few words to add.  The debate over whether the Algerian boxer was indeed a lady.  We gotta admit there are plenty of women in the world who can kick our asses.  It's really true.   While hallucinating a bit I thought of my old high school in Dayton, Ohio.  Belmont High. 

Belmont High School ^] The school is located in Dayton, Ohio, and serves approximately 1000 students. The school mascot is the bison. Belmont High School did not meet any of the 13 indicators for the 2016–2017 school year on the State of Ohio Dept. of Education Report Card, and therefore received an 'F' grade. In addition, the school received a 38.9% score with a grade of 'F' on the Performance Index section of the Report Card as well.^[3] The school opened on September 10, 1956 for students in 8th through 11th grades.

I matriculated there in 1956.  This school did produce one Olympian,  Bill Hosket Jr. who was on the 1968 Olympic basketball team.   His high school teammate Don May was also an All American and the two of them once rode the bench together for the New York Knicks in Walt Frazier's era, and later for the Buffalo NBA franchise while it was on the map.  

I was trying to think if our school had a motto like the following academic institutions.  You know, those Romanic Latin sayings that were probably stolen from the ancient Greeks?

Examples:

Harvard:   Veritas     which means     Truth.    You know like 'In Vino Veritas'?

                    It had previously been Christo et Ecclesiae     for Christ and Church.   

They sort of got away from that in the twentieth century.  

Well, across the street at MIT it's  Mens et Manus   Sounds a bit misogynistic.  But the translation is Mind and Hands ?  I remember that one down home.  Mama would say  "Mind you wash yer hands before dinner".  

If you went to Yale it gets more complex.   Lux et Veritas.   I from Belmont HS thought it had something to do with Lux Dish Soap.   But it means  Light and Truth.   Damn, ole J.D. Vance practices that fer sure.  He done went to school there.   

How 'bout down the pike a bit at Princeton?    Dei Subnumine Viget   = Under God's Power She Flourishes.     Now we're getting into woke  and feminist theory.  Bless you tigers.

I then checked on my old college the U. of Oklahoma.   Civi et republicae    for the citizen and the country     Does that imply  "Me first, then the country"?  Possibly.   I think the transfer portal in college athletics has more than  proven this with 'veritas a plenty'.

Tennessee Tech?   No motto,  but they do have a mission statement.

Okay one last university   Liberty U.   no latin but their  motto is Knowledge Aflame   All I can think of with this motto is Book Burning  which seems to be becoming quite popular these days.

One more, one more:  Trump University   Make America Grate

By now you are asking yourself, 'Why is this on a track and field blog'?   All I can say is be patient.

Let me go back to my high school motto, if there ever was one.  If not, it should have been:

Oh, Hell, I forgot

Let me give some examples of how this motto could have been used in history:

Obi wan Kenobi  to Luke Skywalker:  "Okay Luke, get out your light phaser and repel the enemy."

Luke Skywalker invokes the school motto:   "Oh Hell, I forgot".

Scene Two:  Obi wan Kenobi at Luke Skywalker's Funeral

     Chief Grave Digger to his assistant:   "Where did you put Skywalker's casket?"

     Assistant to Chief Grave Digger:   "Oh, Hell, I Forgot".

Now do you see how the motto can be used to get through life?

In German:   Ach Scheisse, ich habe vergass.   Goebbels to Hitler on Hitler's birthday.

In French:  Cherie, j'ai l'oubliais.   Guillotine operator to Marie Antoinette when she asked for a tissue.

Swahili  Oh Kuzimu, nilisahau.  Henry Morton Stanley when meeting Dr. Livingstone who asked if he had heard any good jokes lately.

Okay, we're finally down to track and field.  Remember that men's 4x100 relay when Christian Coleman asked Kenny Bednarek why he didn't take off at the right time on the relay exchange?  And the answer was...........

Suggestion came in from Bill Schnier:  Men's 4x100:  Fortier, Citius, Temperius   (Stronger, Faster, Sooner)

I think this has a bit of an Okie ring to it.    George

George,

Sorry you missed Dartmouth College’s Latin motto, “Vox clamantis en deserto.”  

In all the clamor of the exchange zone, we might assume that Coleman was “A voice crying out in the wilderness.”  

But what Coleman more likely was shouting was, “Why aren’t you hauling ass?

Roy Benson

Roy:   That would be  Cur non asinum subducas?

George

Reminds me of the Monty Pyrhon skit with the emporer   Biggus Dikus.   

V 14 N. 53 A Rift in the Rift Valley

 Based on an article in the August 15, 20024 The Guardian by Carlos Mureithi

                                   

                A sculpture depicting a Kenyan female athlete that had to be removed from the 'city' of Eldoret.                                                       seen in The Guardian  Aug. 15, 2024

The west Kenyan town of Eldoret has long been a center of the running trade in East Africa.  Recently it made headlines when it was about to be declared a 'city' as opposed to being just a 'town'.   Some statues were made or carved to depict and honor Kenyan runners of the Rift Valley region.  The president of Kenya William Ruto was slated to come out and make a speech.  But the locals of Eldoret protested the quality of the statues,  and they had to be removed.    Kenya is not known for its wood carvings like the ones produced in West Africa, example. in the not so Democratic Republic of the Congo that the Bakuba people do.  

Bakuba work, maybe not a runner but could be

Those carvings traded by missionaries for bibles in the 19th century and transported to museums in Europe inspired western artists such as Picasso to produce their master works.  Picasso even admitted that some of his work was cultural theft.  The Wakamba carvers, the best in Kenya, were not up to the task. Possibly the Wakamba were not even involved as the work above looks more like something done in my freshman woodshop class.   Though on the rise most of the East African work is considered 'airport art' created for the artistically ignorant tourist trade.  The Makonde carvers in southern Tanzania might have done a better job had they been consulted.  But what do southern Tanzanians and northern Mozambiquans know about distance running? 

This Makonde could possibly be the start of a steeplechase race?  The sculpture does seem to have captured Kenyan hurdling technique.

 The Eldoret statues were removed and are probably providing firewood for the local cook stoves grilling 'wali na nyama'.  

Looking at other art work over the ages depicting athletes, we may or may not find cause to say, the Kenyans made the right move.  I'm thinking that the statue depicting Tommy Smith and John Carlos raising their fists at the Mexico City medal ceremony to be particularly well done and very moving, though it did leave out a significant individual, Australian silver medalist Peter Norman from the work.   He paid dearly for his support of Smith and Carlos.    

                                                  Tommie Smith and John Carlos on San Jose State campus

                                           In the Smithsonian,  Peter Norman did get recognized.

Where else are runners depicted?  Nurmi? Owens?  Zatopek?  Viren?  Thorpe?  Blankers-Koen?  Rudolph?

  Jerome?  and others?   

                           A Black Woman Runner (Unnamed) on the Embarcadero in San Francisco

Wilma Rudolph in Clarksville, TN

                                                    Paavo Nurmi in Helsinki by Waino Aaltonen

                                                        Only one depicted running starkers;

                                                        I elected not to show the full frontal view.

Jim Thorpe running (with football)

in Jim Thorpe, PA

Fanny Blankers-Koen in Rotterdam

                                                         Harry Jerome in Vancouver, BC

                                                   The Harry Jerome Lean - Beautiful!

 

                                                               Have a Good Day!

                                                                   Gary Corbitt

Ancient Greek Runner Female

waiting for the baton? 

                                                        Jesse Owens in Oakville Alabama

                                                          Jesse Owens in Cleveland, OH

                                                  .......and Jesse in Columbus, Ohio

                                                               Lasse Viren in Helsinki

                                       Emil Zatopek in his hometown  Koprivnice in Moravia

                                                                One of many of Emil

There are many more around the world,  you just have to name your athlete and look on Google.  

But few if any in Africa.

I've been reminded of a few others:

                                                      Bannister and Landy also in Vancouver, BC

                                                              by Monutmental Photo

                                                              Dick Fosbury at Corvallis, OR

                                               I should not have limited this piece to running.

                                                           Okay discus throwers, I've paid hommage.

                                                         Now don't give me that swirly you threatened me with.

                                                      Shot Putter from NY Public Library Archives