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Former track and field/ cross country star at
Jackson Memorial High School/of Jackson, NJ and Villanova University (number one finisher on NCAA cross country champion team, etc) Ran 2021 USA Olympic Marathon Trial. Has won many races in NJ, etc in recent years. Amanda and husband were expecting their first child in late October 2022. Amanda continued to run all through her pregnancy. And in the Shore AC Cross Country League weekly series race at Holmdel Park on Oct. 15 she ran the classic and tough Holmdel XC 5K course, with its famous "Bowl" under 23 minutes to pace the women's field. Some 60 hours later (just 2 1/2 days) Amanda gave birth and the Hunekes welcomed son Hudson Miles..... All are doing well and the Shore AC and Jersey Shore running communities welcomed this new runner... So, as I said, this is a great story waiting to be written,,, Hope you can follow through and get it done. Full and more precise details can be obtained from Shore AC president, Mr. Walter MacGowan at his office in Spring Lake, NJ. Phone 732-449-9400 ..email: Wmacg@aol.com Best wishes, Elliott Denman 732-222-9213 Elliottden@aol.comt
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By Harold Nolan
A group of Shore A.C. master’s athletes traveled to Lexington, Kentucky to participate in the 2022 USATF National Masters Track and Field Championships, and helped the team land a 9th place out of over 100 teams in the men’s division. The event was held on July 28-31 on the University of Kentucky campus. Led by double gold medal winners Michael Kish and Barry Blake, all of the clubs runners came home with at least one gold medal, as well as with others, a number of seconds and thirds. Micheal Kish (70-74), returning from his double gold victory in the recent world masters track meet repeated his wins in both the 100 and 200 meter events at the nationals. Kish clocked in at 13.22 for the century and 27.11 for furlong. Race walker supreme Barry Blake (65-69) had back to back wins in two days in both the 5k and 10k walking events, clocking in with 33:25.16 and 1:10:13.42 respectively. Harry Nolan took advantage of having recently moved into the 75-79 age group, and scored one gold and two silver medals. On Friday, Nolan won the 2000 meter steeplechase in 11:06.06, and followed over the next two days with seconds in both the 800 and 1500 in 3:03.87 and 6:45.58. In the 800, he was nipped in the final forty yard sprint of the race by world masters 75-79 champion Gary Patton of Iowa. The man for all events in track and field, Rick Lapp (70-74) who had earlier this year been giving emphasis to his 400 and 800 running, switched back to his main events, which resulted in one gold, two silvers and one bronze medal. On the final day of competition, Lapp scored his win of the meet in the long jump with a leap of 13’21/2 feet. He also won two silvers in both the 80 meter hurdles (15.13) and the 300 meter hurdles (53.66), while coming away with the bronze medal in the triple jump in 28’51/2 feet. The octogenarians of the club also had excellent showings. Stan Edelson, 81, turned on the steam down the homestretch of the 80-84 800 meter to win in a fast 3:49.75, and then was nipped at the wire in the 1500 the next day by half a second, clocking in at 7:56.04 for the silver. On the opening day of the meet, he had a 5th place finish in 5k run event in 33:25.16. Fellow 80-84 teammate Roland Cormier scored a gold medal in the 2000 meter steeplechase in 13:06.42 and a silver in the 5k run in 29:41.36. He sustained an injury in the steeplechase event, and was not able to compete in the 1500 meters on Sunday as he had planned. Club Hall of Famer Carlton Huff battled it out in the men’s 65-69 pole vault, placing third with a 10’0” jump. New club member Luis Campos also placed 2nd in the 5k (31:07) and 10K (62:16) race walks, with Michael Mannozzi winning the 35-39 10k walk in 52:40. All of the meet participants were graced with excellent weather on the last three days of the meet in a region where 90 to 100 degree heat usually prevails. The track was a sea of club tents, with some teams having brought between 20 to 30 athletes each. The masters track and field group will be working toward bringing more club masters club members to the 2023 outdoor meet in Greensboro, NC, including many from the long distance running group, as well as some of our excellent field event athletes who did not participate this year with a goal of moving into a top three team finish. BY ELLIOTT DENMAN
EUGENE, OREGON - Watching Syndey McLaughlin's Hayward Field brilliance at home back in New Jersey - like (hopefully) millions of other dedicated track fans around the universe - Shore Athletic Club president Walter MacGowan had this one right on the button: "Amazing race. She is one for the ages." Absolutely true, Walter. Then again, just part of the story. Let me tell you that Sydney McLaughlin is destined to deliver years and years more of amazing performances. And, with each one, she will re-define what an athlete can do "for the ages." The Dunellen, NJ dazzler's 50.68 triumph at the World Championships Saturday was stunning. It smashed her previous world of 51.41 set at the USA Olympic Trials at this same venue by a huge 0.73 seconds, which in turn had bettered her own world mark of 51.46 set at the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games. The rest of the world will have a lot of years to catch up to McLaughlin - because she will certainly better 50 seconds for the one-lap, 10-barrier event sometime in her brilliant future. Anyone in the Hayward crowd of 21,000-plus Friday could see this coming. Union Catholic High School alumna McLaughlin was not even pressed - runner-up Femke Bol of the Netherlands, who was expected to be a lot closer, was never in it at 52.27. At 22, "Syd" has "ages" of even better things ahead of her. (Bol, also 22, too.) Look for her to run a superb leg here on the USA 4x400 relay team on Sunday. And then - perhaps - go on a victory tour. “I am super grateful," she said after the 50.68 was confirmed. "It all came together today and another medal for the Team USA. It was absolutely unreal to have my family in the stands. I have never had them together in one place. "The time is absolutely amazing, and the sport is getting faster and faster. Just figuring out what barriers can be broken. I only get faster from here. I executed the race the way (coach) Bobby (Kersee) wanted me to. "We knew warming up that it was going to be one of those days." As ever, there was "glory in it for all." Queens, NYC's Dalilah Muhammad took the bronze medal in 53.13 for her 4th all-time Worlds medal in the event. And USA made it four of the top five when Shamier Little and Britton Wilson trailed home Dalilah Muhammad. After seven days of standout Hayward action, the World Championships had at last delivered a world record, And McLaughlin was rewarded with more than the gold medal and the applause of the mulitudes - here at Hayward or watching around the planet . She'll bring home the giant-sized $100,000 check signed by World Athletics chief Sebastian Coe. It's the check that had been burning a large hole in his pocket all week - awaiting those two letters - WR - to pop up on the big screen. Some joshed that "the Jersey girl" should have walked home after the triumph was clinched. That way she'd have left further room to break the record - by mini-er increments in the big races to come. Remember how high jumper Dwight Stones and pole vaulter Sergei Bubka - when at their very best - would have their high-bar attempts raised by a centimeter at a time? Say this about the 400 hurdles. It hasn't been around as a women's event forever. First races over the one-lap barriers were in the 1970s. The men's 400 hurdles, some track old-timers suggest, didn't really come of age until Glenn Davis of Ohio State first broke the 50-second barrier at the 1956 USA Olympic Trials at the Los Angeles Coliseum. (Men's hurdles are higher than women's hurdles.) So they're saying similar things these days about the women's 400 hurdles, too. It won't really "come of age" until "someone breaks 50." That, of course, will be Sydney McLaughlin, and look for it to happen a lot sooner than later. By Elliott Denman
EUGENE, OREGON - Just as a reminder, we told you so. Years and years ago. So did John Moon, the famed Seton Hall University track coach. Here's the story: Back in the mid-1990s, Seton Hall coach Moon, himself a former sprints great, interviewed by this then-Asbury Park Press sports writer (yours truly) about the budding romance of his Seton Hall team members Kevin Lyles and Keisha Caine, Moon delivered a track quote for the ages. "If and when these two get married, their children are likely to be very fast people," said Moon, in the story soon delivered to Asbury Park Press readers. How right we were! All these years later, Noah Lyles and Josephus Lyles are a lot more than just "very fast people." Noah is already a two-time World Championships 200-meter winner. Josephus can be a medalist at these 2022 Worlds, too, if only they find a place for him on one of the Team USA relay units. Now, fast forward.....very fast forward. Noah Lyles had celebrated his 25th birthday on Monday by romping to an easy 200-meter first-round win in the 18th World Championships of Track and Field, hamming it up all the way to the finish line. Three days later, Lyles was all-business, all-maturity. No hamming it this time. No joshing, no early celebrations. And he thus showed the Hayward Field crowd - and a global TV audience - what he really could do at full-focus, full-throttle, full of the amazing velocity he's apparently been endowed with at birth. Yes, as predicted by his father's coach. As told to the Asbury Park Press. He'd won at Worlds in Doha, Qatar, clocking 19.83 Noah Lyles' second sonsecutive World Championships win was a lot quicker. IThis one took just 19.31 seconds, the fastest time ever recorded for the half-lap distance by an American, crossing the line 1/100th of a second faster than Michael Johnson's winning time at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Only two other men have ever run faster - Jamaicans Usain Bolt (19.19) in 2009 and Yohan Blake (19.26) in 2011. How's this for a stat: Lyles' first 100 meters (out of the blocks) took 10.15 seconds, his second 100 just 9.16... Yes, 9.16! Bolt's world-record for the distance -under standard racing conditions - is .9.58. !! ;And Lyles' blazing performance launched a 1-2-3 Team USA sweep (replicatng the earlier sweep in the 100.) Wisconsin's Kenny Bednarek claimed the sliver in 19.77, Florida's Erriyon Knighton the bronze in 19.80. Bednarek is 23, Knighton just 18, a recent high school graduate and the fastest junior-age (sub-20) dasher in world history, yes faster even than the young Usain Bolt. Liberia's Joseph Fahnbulleh - also the NCAA champion for the University of Florida, clocked in at 19.84; Dominican Republic's Alexander Ogando (19.84) and Trinidad and Tobago's Jereem Richards (20.08) to lead all the rest of the world. "Today was my day, I did what I came here to do," Lyles, already draped in the gold medal, told the Hayward crowd in a celebratory post-race interview. "At first I thought I was slow, then that time (19.31) popped up (on the big display screen) and I said 'wow.' And "wow" said Hayward attendees, too. Track and field celebrities have been in the stands, rejoicing in all the golden performance at these Worlds, since the meet began. Tommy Smith and John Carlos, appropriately, were spotlighted guests for this night of the two 200 finals (men and women.) It was 54 years ago that their podium stance at Mexico City after the 200 final - protesting injustices in their nation -were met with fierce, antagonistic reactions - and which kept on for years. How times have changed - now Smith and Carlos are considered proud all-time icons of sports history.- and Olympic Hall of Famers. Edwin Roberts was in the audience today, too. He's been a Philadelphian for years - and a top official at major meets for decades - but in 1964-68-72 he was a brilliant Olympic sprinter for Trinidad and Tobago. In 1964, he took a bronze in the 200 and another bronze in the 4x100 relay. He added a 200-meter fourth in '68, So, your thoughts on this one, Edwin? "Excellent, excellent, excellent, excellent." For sure, for sure, for sure, for sure. BY ELLIOTT DENMAN
EUGENE, OREGON - If ever a stadium announcer had a legitimate cause for jumping out of his seat, and going absolutely blooming bonkers, it was Geoff Wightman on Tuesday evening at Hayward Field. "MY SON IS THE WORLD CHAMPION!" he told the Hayward crowd, who took in the stunningly superb upset win of his son, Jake, in the final of the classic men's 1500-meter race at the18th World Championships of Track and Field, with as much astounding amazement as he did. Call it an upset of all upsets. Call it a whole lot more. The man making the call from his perch at Hayward couldn't believe what he was seeing. And neither could most of the Hayward audience. Virtually all the sport's experts had pre-consigned the gold medal to a Jakob - i.e., Ingebrigtsen of Norway, the reigning Olympic champion, the two-time European champion, the number one man on the World Athletics computer ranking system, the eighth fastest man in his sport's history - and all this at age 21. Instead, it went to a Jake. A computer didn't rule. Jake did. In a super-fast race that rocketed this Jake (who crossed the line in 3:29:23) to the top of the yearly charts, past Jakob (who clocked a 3:29.47), bronze medalist Mohamed Katir of Spain (3:29.90), and nine others, few could believe their eyes. Coming into this one, Wightman wasn't even the fastest of the Great Britons. That was Josh Kerr, who wound up fifth at 3:30.60. Heavens, some didn't even think he was Britain's best Jake - after all, Jake Heyward had clocked a 3:33.54 back in early June. If Ingebrigtsen didn't rate as universal pre-race favorite, well, that honor belonged to either Timothy Cheruiyot of Kenya (whose 3:28.28 2021 credentials ranked him seventh all-time), or Kenya countryman Abel Kipsang, who'd run 3:29.56 last year. But every formchart went flying off to oblivion on this perfect Oregon evening (80 degree fahrenheit, 42 percent humidity) as these dozen great racers took on the challenge once known as "the metric mile." Norway's Jakob took over the pace from Kenya's Kipsang just past the 700-meter mark and held onto it through the 1200 mark. And then Jake came storming through. His 14th 100-meter dash took 13.47. And his 15th might even have been even quicker - if he hadn't raised his arms in absolute incredulity those final strides as he realized he was about to live up to his father's to-be-remembered-forever call "MY SON IS THE WORLD CHAMPION!" Spain went 3-4 with Katir getting the bronze medal and Mario García placing 4th. Back of Jake and Jakob, the field registered best marks-for-place at the World Championships in 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th places, In the Hayward stands, as Jake crossed the line and Dad Geoff reminded the crowd who that stunning winner was, Mrs. Susan Wightman, the champion's mom, did her own cheerleading. All the Wightmans are from Horsham, she told you. And if you don't know where Horsham is, we'll let Wikipedia tell you that: Horsham is a market town on the upper reaches of the River Arun on the fringe of the Weald in West Sussex, England. The town is 31 miles (50 km) south southwest of London, 18.5 miles northwest of Brighton and 26 miles northeast of Chichester. Nearby towns include Crawley to the northeast and Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill to the southeast." Got that? Count on an updated Wikipedia version to tell you "Horsham is also the hometown of 2022 World 1500-meter champion Jake Wightman." Father Geoff - himself an excellent marathoner - has also been his son's coach. And, a few minutes after the upset triumph of her son was finally sinking in, Mrs. Wightman was asked about her emotions at that point. "We are all absolutely overjoyed," she told you, in an absolute understatement. Not since Steve Cram won the 1500 at the first World Championships in Helsinki in 1983, has a Briton struck gold in the event at these now biennially-staged Worlds. Now, Jake Wightman joins a small club - Sydney Wooderson, Roger Bannister, Chris Chataway, Derek Ibbotson,Brian Hewson, Steve Ovett, Steve Cram, Seb Coe are the most illustrious - of Great Britons who'e ruled the waves of the 1500-meter world. Coe, the man who brought the highly successful 2012 Olympic Games to London, now - in fact -runs this whole World Athletics show, being staged in this nation for the very first time. "Jake is flying right home after this," said Mrs. Wightman. "Next for him is the Commonwealth Games (at Birmingham.)" "He's got to be ready for that one, too." But he must prepare for an onslaught of media adulation, as well, before the first starting gun is fired at Birmingham. The medals were duly distributed and the playing of "God Save the Queen" called the crowd to rise. After five days, Team GB had its first gold medal of the Worlds. Mrs. Wightman gave her Union Jack another big flutter before hearing an American journalist seated a row back of her ask for a moment of her attention. "My wife is English and I hope she's watching this back home (on TV) in New Jersey," he said. "And my dad was a Jacob, too. Some people called him the best lefthanded dentist in the North Bronx." "He must have been a very good man," said Mrs. Wightman. "Yes, he was," said the journalist, getting a little misty over all this, too. "Yes he was." By ELLIOTT DENMAN
EUGENE, OREGON - Chalk it up to track and field's dazzling diversity. There's something in the world's oldest sport for everybody, now so more than ever before. And that's its greatest strength. Sure Team USA is off to a mighty good start at the 18th World Championships of Track and Field, But Team Rest of the World did a whole lot of first-class catching-up Monday at Hayward Field and environs. Six finals were on the slate, four for women, two for men, How's this for sharing the wealth? The gold medals went to six different nations. The allocation began with the morning's women's marathon run through Eugene and Springfield - won by Ethiopia's Gotyom Gebreslase in an all-time Worlds best clocking of 2: 18:11. When the action moved back to Hayward Field, Venezuela's Yulimar Rojas took the women's triple jump (15.47 meters), Kenya's Faith Kipyegon the 1500 meters (3:52.96) and Belgium's Nafissatou Thiam the heptathlon (with 6,947 points.). On the men's side, global golds went to 3000-meter steeplechaser Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco (8:25.13) and high jumper Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatarr (2.37 meters.) Consistency sure pays in this sport - this was the fourth Worlds title for Kipyegon, the third for Rojas, Thiam and Barshim. The silvers were claimed six ways, too - by Kenya's marathoner, Judith Korir; Jamaica's triple jumper, Shanika Ricketts; Ethiopia's 1500 runner, Gudal Tsegay; the Netherlands' heptathlete Anouk Vetter; Ethiopia's steepler Lamecha Girma, and Korea's high jumper Sanhyeok Woo. Only in the bronze department did Team USA provide a breakthrough, Americans claimed two of those third places with Tori Franklin in the triple jump and Anna Hall in the heptathlon. But the other bronze winners represented four nations: Israeli marathoner Leoah Salpeter, British 1500 runner Laura Muir, Kenya steeple Consensius Kipruto and Ukraine high jumper Andriy Protsenko. Today's world is definitely not tranquil. Surely not so in Ukraine. Surely filled with unrest in Ethiopia and Venezuela. Thanks then, track and field, for providing brief "breaks in the action" on tihis multi-faceted Monday while more serious goings-on dot every front page and every edition of the late-night news. #### EUGENE, OREGON - Winning a medal at the World Championships of Track and Field is a heck of an achievement.
Setting two all-time personal best performances along the way to that medal is even more of an achievement. Completing a 1-2-3 Team USA sweep in the event - first time that's ever happened over the 18-meet history of the World Championships, the classic meet dating back to 1983 that is at least on par with the Olympic Games to the sport's purists - clinches the performance's total magnitude. That, folks, is the Josh Awotunde story. The Shore Athletic Club member, out of Delsea (NJ) High School and the University of South Carolina, did himself, his family, his Shore AC clubmates - and most importantly, his nation, immensely proud with his mighty lifetime best shot put efforts of (first) 73 feet and a quarter inch, and (then) 73 feet, 1 3/4 inches, in dramatic Day Three action of the World Championships at Hayward Field. Together with Oregonian Rayn Crouser's come-from-behind victory in the event with his fifth-round toss of 75 feet, 3 1/4 inches, and Pennsylvanian Joe Kovacs' mighty heave of 75-1 1/4 for the silver, the New Jerseyan's performance gave Team USA its first-ever 1-2-3 shot put medals sweep at the Worlds. Not since Kansas's Bill Nieder, California's Parry O'Brien and Arizona's Dallas Long went 1-2-3 at the 1960 Rome Olympics had a Team USA shot put trio swept all the medals at a major outdoor global competition. And it was only the sixth time - any event, men or women - that a single nation had claimed all the medals at the Outdoor Worlds. Carl Lewis-led trios which took them all in both the 100-meter dash and long jump back in 1983 and the Fred Kerley-Marvin Bracy-Trayvon Bromell unit who went 1-2-3 here Saturday in the 100 were the only previous American threesomes to be this monopolistic. To Crouser, who had to battle back after Kovacs swept into the lead, it was a form of patience rewarded. He held the world record, he owns two Olympic golds, but he'd never won the Outdoor Worlds. Kovacs beat him by a single centimeter back in 2019 at the Doha Worlds. "To win it this way, in front of family and friends, at a place (Hayward Field) I can almost call home, is just amazing," said the 29-year-old Crouser. "This was the perfect place to come through with the win." "I knew it could still turn around (after he'd taken the lead in the fourth round," said Kovacs, 33. "Ryan's that kind of competitor. He's always got a way to respond." The Crouser-Kovacs feats were not unexpected. But Awotunde's surely was. The 27-year-old came in just ninth place on the 2022 world list. But he still beat a bunch of those ahead of him on that list -New Zealand's Thomas Walsh wound up fourth, Brazil's Darian Romani fifth and Croatia's Filip MIhaljevic sixth. "I'm very grateful to Shore AC," he said. "You guys have been so great to me. I really appreciate it." His University of South Carolina coaches were all here to cheer his performance. And a handful of Shore AC members and friends were scattered among the Hayward Field crowd, too. Just moments after Crouser, Kovacs and Awotunde completed their shot put sweep, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce,Shericka Jackson and Elaine Thompson-Herah of Jamaica took the top positions in the women's 100-meter sprint final. And that, understandably, prompted a delegation of Jamaica fans to start a "one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three" chant. And that, in turn, prompted a smiling American in the stands to tell them,"hey, guys, I didn't think you were shot put fans."  By ELLIOTT DENMAN It’s invariably shortened to simply “Title IX.” But its formal title is “Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.” It was met with considerable resistance when it was added to the federal code 50 years ago – expressly to prohibit “sex discrimination in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” Spelled out, it told America that “no person shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any academic, extracurricular, research, occupational training, or other education program or activity operated by a recipient which receives Federal financial assistance.” It was written into the lineup of federal statutes at a perfect moment in the great American awakening. It brought a degree of fuller citizenship to America’s mothers and daughters, which should have been cheering news to America’s fathers and sons, too. It did – but hardly with a sense of immediacy. Years passed before the legislation gained full acceptance. Some hard-liners continue to argue that Title IX is still a shaky proposition, of dubious merit, of considerable distance from reality. But it’s now 2022, and they're usually relegated to the ranks of the misguided zealots of a lost cause. Sports being sports – an integral phase of modern-day American life – many of Title IX’s greatest beneficiaries have been its remarkably multi-talented, multi-faceted mothers and daughters who’ve spent the last half-century pushing those same negativists back into their “no-no-no” neigborhoods of living in the past. Vivid examples of American progress in the “Title X era,” of course, can be now be found in all avenues of the American athletic experience. But perhaps nowhere brighter than in a Hellertown, Pennsylvania, household, and its extended branch in Gainesville, Florida. A quick summary: It was Title IX – in so many ways – that propelled Joetta Clark to one one of the most brilliant midde-distance racing careers ever achieved by an American runner, male or female. It was Title IX that – basically - spelled the end of the AIAW era. That’s AIAW, as in the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. Founded in 1967, it was gone by the early 1980s, forced out of business by Title IX’s demands that scholarship opportunities for the ladies at least approximate those available to the guys, and supplanted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.. Thus, Joetta – she prefers being called by her single first name these days, along with such contemporaries as Oprah, Madonna and Beyonce – was able to snare a scholarship to the University of Tennessee and quickly used it to put her Vols teams atop the NCAA track and field pack. Joetta, who’d gained her first track recognition under the tutelage of her celebrated Dad – Joe Clark, principal of Paterson East Side, N.J. High School, famed as the tough disciplinarian of the film “Lean on Me” and a Montclair State University distance runner as a younger man. She rose to early greatness representing Columbia High School of Maplewood, coached by Len Klepack, and running concurrently in the Colgate Women’s Games, the ladies-only festival masterminded by Fred Thompson. Joetta would win the amazing total of nine NCAA gold medals in her brilliant career on coach Terry Crawfod’s Tennessee teams – and even more amazingly - raced her way to four Olympic Games, and a dozen USA national championships. The NCAA's first women's indoor title meet took place in 1983 - just on time for Joetta to run her way to another 800 crown. For all that brilliance, she’d wind up in an array of Halls of Fame and build careers as a motivational and inspirational speaker, author, Sports Foundation executive director, New Jersey Meadowlands commissioner and noted businesswoman. Her last full season as a runner was 2000 – and what a way to wind it up. Not only did she race her way to the Sydney Olympics, but the USA 800-meter entry was an all-Clark delegation, kid sister Hazel, sister-in-law Jerald Clark Miles, and Joetta herself. Talitha rose to track prominence at Saucon Valley High School in Pennsylvania. And all Talitha's deeds there - multi state and regional titles - opened the door to her University of Florida scholarship. Again, with that original boost from Title IX. Just look at Talitha now. Two years into her U. of Florida career, she’s the toast of Gainesvvile – and a whole lot more – and still a teen-ager. She'd placed third in the NCAA indoor 400 final as a freshman but raced to the top of the national collegiate indoor heap with a sensational 50.98 win at Birmingham this March. In the process, Joetta and Talitha became the first mother-daughter pair to be NCAA track titlists. But her triumphant run in the NCAA outdoor final last Saturday at Eugene’s Hayward Field – two days after a 50.08 PR semifinal win - was even more of a sizzler. Turning on the afterburners past the 300-meter mark, she blazed away from the field and crossed the finish line in – wow! – 49.99 seconds. Left behind in her slipstream were Charokee Young of Texas A&M (and Jamaica) at 50.65, Kennedy Simon of Texas at 50.69, Alexis Holmes of Kentucky at 50.71, and five more in the nine-runner final. Even more vital, it keyed a triumphant spurt for her Florida Gators in the race for NCAA team honors. Cool and calm, Talitha told Track and Field News, “no matter where I am in the race, I know that I have certain things about myself that I can execute and perform well.” Just one other runner - Courtney Okolo of Texas in 2016- had ever won the NCAA same-year indoor-outdoor 400 double. “I am beyond excited and proud,” averred mom Joetta. The 49.99 was, of course, her career best. It was a lot more, too - the best by an American this year, third best in NCAA history, and fourth best in the world at this relatively early phase of the 2022 campaign. Only Dominican Republic’s Marileidy Paulino (49.49), A&M's Charokee Young of Jamaica (49.87) and reigning Olympic champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo of Bahamas (49.91) now top her on the global year charts. And the best is surely just ahead. All going as expected, Hayward Field fans will see a lot of this rising superstar in the next month. Next up is the USA Nationals, where she stands to be a top candidate to win at the meet that doubles as Final Trials for the World Championships to follow in July. Of course, of course, she’ll have to step it up a notch or two just to make the USA Worlds team for the first global outdoor title ever to be staged in USA. The nation’s roster is brimming with other talent, youngsters and veterans both. But don’t you dare bet against her chances of representing Team USA at the Worlds, not only in the individual one-lapper, but in a relay, or even two of them. Worlds women’s 400 gold? It’s a crown first claimed for Team USA by her now-aunt, Jearl Miles Clark, in 1993, and later taken by America's Sanya Richards (2009), Allyson Felix (2015) and Phyllis Francis (2017.) Talitha Diggs will mark her 20th birthday on the 22nd of August. All going well, the celebrations figure to be world-class, too.  By Elliott Denman PHILADELPHIA - Penn Relays officials weren't as fast as the senior member of the competition cast of the venerable track and field carnival that closed out its 126th year just after 6 p.m. on Saturday, April 30, at historic Franklin Field. The official Penn Relays program is 160 pages thick, 80 pages on every team and individual entry, and schedule item, in the three-day 2022 meet; then 80 pages more devoted to the records set in every race on the card, from Harvard's 4x440 yards relay win in 1895, to the array of winners in 2019, when the meet was last held in full fashion, and before the pandemic erased the 2020 meet and the 2021 event was held as a strictly-limited localized event for nearby colleges. But nowhere did that program list records in the Masters division, those events, individual races and relays, for the stalwart men and women racers age 40 and over, who love running at Penn just as much as all the youngsters. And that's why, when Lester Wright Senior of Long Branch, representing Shore Athletic Club, crossed the finish line of the men's 80-and-up 100-meter dash in 26.34 seconds about 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, one day after his 100th birthday, the fuller magnitude of the achievement was not made clear to all on the premises. Sure he earned loud rounds of applause from the nation's biggest track meet audience -specially so when his 26.34-second performance earned seventh place over-all in a nine-man field, and the two he beat were mere lads of 86 and 92. Over-all winner was Bob Williamson of the Potomac Valley Track Club, age 84, in 17.33, but Mr. Wright was within striking distance of two others, age 85 and 84, who ran 24.17 and 26.11. Not until sometime Sunday did he get verification of the quality of his performance - it was world record! Nothing about it had been announced to the Franklin Field audience. One day after his race, by now safely home in Long Branch, he finally was told he had set a world record. The charts were belatedly consulted. And they showed that the accepted world 100-meter record by a man age 100 to 104 was 26.95, and had been set by a Californian, Donald Pellmann, at San Diego on Sept. 20, 2015. Mr. Wright had slashed the world record by all of 0.61 seconds, a very long span of time in track and field terms, "Amazing, amazing, amazing," said his delighted teammates and lots more. Well, what's next for Mr. Wright? "I'd like to take a crack at the (M100) 200 and 400-meter records, too, sometime soon," he said. The M100 200-meter world record is 1:17.59 and was set by South Africa's Philip Rabinowitz in 2004. The M100 400-meter world record is 3:41.00 and was set by Austria's Erwin Jaskulski in 2003. Shore AC officials were quick to say they'd try to plan record-attempt races at the 36th annual NJ International Meet/National Club Championships, which they are organizing for July 1-2 at Monmouth University's Joe Compagni Track. 
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October 2022
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