This Day in Track & Field, January 10, Marty Liquori over Steve Prefontaine at CYO Mile (1975), Emiel Puttemans breaks 5,000m indoor WR (1976), Born this Day! Faith Kipyegon (1994), written and edited by Walt Murphy

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by Walt Murphy’s News and Results Service (wmurphy25@aol.com), used with permission

This Day in Track & Field–January  10

1953–Reggie Pearman won the Senior Mets 600y at NY’s Armory in 1:11.7, equaling the meet record set by the legendary Jimmy Herbert in 1942.

            Pearman defeated Vern Dixon of Manhattan College and Herb McKenley and Mal Whitfield of the Grand Street Boys. McKenley had been a member of the Olympic-champion Jamaican 4×4 team, which had set the world record in defeating the Americans in 1952, while Whitfield was a two-time Olympic champion in the 800 (1948-1952).

            They were just 2 of 6 past and future Olympic champions competing that evening, in a meet that was ranked #10 in the “100 Greatest Moments in Armory History” (Compiled in 2008).

Others included Lindy Remigino of Manhattan, Olympic champion in the 100 and 4×1; Andy Stanfield, gold medalist in the 200 and 4×1; Horace Ashenfelter, Sullivan Award winner and Olympic champion in the steeplechase; and Tom Courtney, who ran a leg for Fordham in the 2-mile relay, the Olympic champion in the 800 in ’56;

            Other1952 medalists included Meredith Gourdine, like Pearman a member of Joe Yancey’s NY Pioneer Club, silver in the LJ;  and Jimmy Gathers, bronze in the 200. Other notables included  walkers Henry Laskau (3 Olympics) and Rudy Haluza (2 Games); the actor Roscoe Lee Browne, who won the 1,000 that night for the Pioneers, and Tom Murphy, a future Olympian (1960) in the 800 who anchored the St. Augustine HS 2-mile relay team to victory.

Pearman, an NYU grad and legendary indoor star, made the Olympic 800 final in ’52 and was a member of a world-record 4×880 that year; Herbert, who set the world indoor record in the 600 in 1940, anchored NYU’s winning Penn Relays mile relay in 1940.

NY Times Obituary(Pearman)

1959—High Jumper John Thomas, a 17-year old freshman at Boston University, set the first of his 6 World Indoor Records of the season by clearing 6-11 (2.11) in Hanover,NH.  He would become the first man to clear…