CAPTAIN ZINN MEMORIAL 5K RACES WILL HONOR OLYMPIC GREAT AND ALL VIETNAM VETERANS

COLTS NECK, NJ - Captain Ronald Lloyd Zinn is gone but he is certainly not forgotten.The late, great West Pointer and two-time USA Olympic star's memory will be saluted once again at the 57th annual Capt Zinn Memorial Races this coming Sunday, April 10, 2022,at Dorbrook Park, Route 537, Colts Neck.      Capt. Zinn gave his life for his country on a Vietnam battlefield in 1965, along with his comrades, and so the race will honor all Vietnam veterans, as well. Competitors from near and far will gather for the 5-kilometer run that begins at 10 a.m. and the 5K racewalk that will immediately follow at 10:05 a.m.A half-mile run for boys and girls will precede the main events at 9.30 am. The races are once again staged by Shore Athletic Club in coordination with St. James Elementary School of Red Bank.  Pre-entries are requested and full information is available at www.shoreac.org. The Zinn story goes back over six decades.A native of the Chicago area, he took up the Olympic discipline of racewalking as a mmber of the Green and Gold AC, led by famed Coach Mr. Mike Riban.  Earning a coveted appointment to the U.S. Military Academy, he arrived at West Point in 1958, joined the varsity track and cross country teams, and continued in racewalking.  He made it onto the USA Olympic Team in 1960 and placed 19th in the 20k walk in Rome.By the time of his West Point graduation in 1962, he was a multiple USA national champion, a three-time IC4A walk champion, and holder of the world indoor record for the one-mle walk at 6:18.8.He "stayed right with it" for two more years and at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games he placed sixth, at the time the highest-ever placing by an American in the Games.  Just one other American has placed higher in the 20K in all the years since.But, just 10 months after his Tokyo Olympic race, he was killed in action, in a heroic stand with members of his combat platoon,  He was interred with full military honors at West Point.Since he'd often competed in Shore AC-staged events, in Asbury Park, Seaside Heights and elsewhere, the April event was renamed in his honor 57 years ago.Former U.S. Army staff sergeant Joe Renzella of Neptune City, an honored Vietnam veteran who earned two Purple Heart medals, will again carry the American flag though his 5K run,  Other Vietnam veterans are expected to join him.  Coming from West Point to represent the Academy in the event will be Cadets Alyssa Austin of Marlboro Township and Dean Hassak of Paramus.    New Jersey Natural Gas Co. is once again an event sponsor, along with other friends of the Zinn event, several of them in support of the race for many years.Zinn Races founder Elliott Denman of West Long Branch was himself a competitor of Zinn and has forever remembered him with immense pride:."Ron Zinn was a great USA Olympian, a great athlete; his life was a tribute to all that West Point represents.  It will be wonderful seeing a big field of runners and walkers out there at Dorbrook Park. It's a very emotional thing to me and shold be to all of us."