Walt Murphy is one of the finest track geeks that I know. Walt does #ThisDayinTrack&FieldHistory, an excellent daily service that provides true geek stories about our sport. You can check out the service for FREE with a free one-month trial subscription! (email: WaltMurphy44@gmail.com ) for the entire daily service. We will post a few historic moments each day, beginning February 1, 2024.
This Day in Track & Field–March 9
by Walt Murphy’s News and Results Service  (wmurphy25@aol.com), used with permission
1963—Brian Sternberg set an American Indoor Record of 16-3  ½ (4.97) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Sternberg
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/seattletimes/obituary.aspx?pid=165441295
1980—With ½-mile to go at the World X-Country Championships on the Longchamp Hippodrome (horse race course) in Paris, Nick Rose, the 1974 NCAA Div. I, Champion, while at Western Kentucky, looked like a sure winner after leading for most of the race. West Germany’s Hans-Jürgen Orthmann and American Craig Virgin, Illinois’ 1975 NCAA Champion, were still within striking distance.
Orthmann (37:02) took the lead from the tiring Rose with about 400 meters to go, and it was his turn to look like a sure thing. Rose (37:05) was unable to respond, and Virgin (37:01) was sitting about 10 meters behind.
Orthmann still had the lead with 100 meters to go, but Virgin was in sprint mode now. A few strides later, he took the lead and went on to win the first of his two World Cross titles!
England won the Men’s team title, the last country other than Ethiopia or Kenya to do so (the U.S. was second). Ed Eyestone finished third in the Junior race. He went on to win the 1984 NCAA title while at Brigham Young, where he’s now the head men’s coach.
Norway’s Grete Waitz (15:05) won the 3rd of her five Women’s titles, while the U.S., fielding an all-star team of Jan Merrill (5th), Margaret Groos (10th), Julie Shea (13th), Brenda Webb (21), Joan Benoit (26th), and Ellison Goodal l(35th), won the bronze medals in the team battle.
The men’s field had to regroup after a mass false start. Rose, in addition to colliding with trespassing photographers early in the race, later admitted that he had lost count of the (5) laps and thought there was only one lap remaining when, in fact, there were two!
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