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 14
1964–It was the first day of competition at the first of four Olympic Games that I would attend as a member of Track and Field News’s Olympic Tours. I first became aware of the magazine the previous year and quickly signed up when I saw an ad for their trip to the Tokyo Olympics.
One of the tour packages included a stopover in Hawaii, and I had watched the Opening Ceremony with fellow tour members on a TV set up in a hotel hallway in Honolulu. I had even competed (using the term loosely) in a road race that featured local resident Leah Ferris, the 1963 U.S. Indoor 1/2-mile champion. With the time difference, I was also able to watch a World Series game between the NY Yankees and St.Louis Cardinals at 7am!
But now here I was, a young track fan from Brooklyn, walking towards the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo. I can still hear the flag-ropes banging against the tall metal posts in the plaza outside the stadium on that breezy day (took me a few days to figure that out). As luck would have it, my seat was right next to Cordner Nelson and his wife, Mary. What better way to be introduced to the Olympic experience than to talk track (and field) with the co-founder of Track and Field News!
Most of that first day was filled with qualifying rounds (Bob Hayes won his heat and 1/4-final in the Men’s 100-meters), but there was one running final–the Men’s 10,000-meters. Most of the pre-Games chatter centered on Ron Clarke, the world record holder from Australia, defending champion Pyotr Bolotnikov of the Soviet Union, and New Zealand’s Murray Halberg, the 1960 Olympic Champion at 5000-meters. Clarke was the consensus pick of T&F News’s expert panel, with 18-year old Gerry Lindgren considered to be the leading American entry.
A crowded field of 38 runners, still the largest ever to contest an Olympic 10k final, started the race, and the surprising 1/2-way…
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