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.
by Walt Murphy’s News and Results Service (wmurphy25@aol.com), used with permission
This Day in Track & Field–October 9
1960-18-year old Valeriy Brumel, the winner of the silver medal at the Rome Olympics earlier in the year, raised his European Record in the high jump to 7-2 ¼ (2.19) in Lugansk, Ukraine. Brumel went on to win the gold medal at the 1964 Olympics and set six World records from 1961-1963 (best of 7-5 ¾[2.28]).
Sports Illustrated Vault (1963-In His Own Words):
https://vault.si.com/vault/1963/02/04/the-big-jump-a-siberian-champion-tells-his-story
https://vault.si.com/vault/1969/10/20/you-cant-keep-a-good-high-jumper-down
2005—Deena Kastor won the Women’s race at the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon. It was the first marathon win of her career and her time of 2:21:25 wasn’t far off her American Record of 2:21:16.
Kastor was well on her way to bettering that AR until she started to struggle about 20-miles into the race. Romania’s Constantina Diță, the defending champion, was starting to narrow a once-formidable gap with every stride, but Kastor was able to hold on for a 5-second win, with Diță running a personal best of 2:21:30.
“I suffered greatly in the last 5K, but was able to make the finish line. I’m only now starting to feel ‘Okay,’” Kastor said more than an hour after finishing. “At 20 miles I thought, I’m starting to feel it, starting to feel the pavement a little bit, the bottoms of my feet were getting a little tender. With four miles to go, I thought this was really going to be a long four miles. It was really the last three miles that were the ugliest, and I really, really felt awful.” “I had nothing. One look over my shoulder revealed the defending champion closing quickly. Where the hell was the finish line?”
Led by Felix Limo (2:07:02) and Benjamin Maiyo (2:07:09), Kenyans swept the top-10 places in the Men’s race!
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