Walt Murphy’s News and Results Service (wmurphy25@aol.com)
This Day in Track & Field–February 26
1966–Kansas freshman Jim Ryun, 2-months shy of his 19th birthday, set an American Junior Indoor Record of 3:59.6 in the mile in Kansas City.
1971—Frank Shorter won the 3-mile at the U.S. Indoor Championships at NY’s Madison Square Garden in 13:10.6, just missing George Young’s World Indoor Record of 13:09.8. Shorter thought he could break the record, but the deep breaths didn’t come on the last lap, saying “I just couldn’t dig down enough. The smoke was getting to me on the last two laps.” (The Garden hadn’t yet banned smoking in the arena).
Finishing 5th in 13:37.0 was prep Dave Merrick (Lincoln Way-New Lenox,IL), who broke Gerry Lindgren’s U.S. High School Record of 13:37.8 (1964).
Merrick: https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2466555
1977—Clancy Devery, a Junior at South Salem (OR), set a U.S. High School Record of 2:23:05 at the Trail’s End Marathon in Seaside, Oregon.
https://runningnewmexico.podbean.com/e/episode-49-clancy-devery/
1982–Eveyln Ashford set a World Record of 6.54 in the 60-yard dash at the U.S. Indoor Championships in Madison Square Garden.
Joan Hansen (9:37.03), Brenda Webb (9:37.64), and Margaret Groos (9:37.65) all broke Francie Larrieu’s previous World Record in the Women’s 2-mile (9:38.1). Larrieu, the early pace-setter, finished 4th in 9:44.85.
Carl Lewis, having to start his runup on the banked track after discovering the usual Garden runway was short, won the Men’s Long Jump with a leap of 28-3/4 (8.55), falling just one centimeter short of matching his 7-week old World Record!
Lewis had been declared ineligible at Houston after failing a history course, but didn’t seem to mind. “I don’t have the burden of extra team meets and multiple events,” he said at the time. “I love it!”
The “winner” of the Women’s Long Jump, which was held in the morning before maybe 100 spectators, was unheralded Veronica Bell, a junior at Cal Poly Pomona. With a previous best of 20-6 ½ (6.26/outdoors), Bell was credited with a jump of 21-11 ¾ (6.70) in the first round, ostensibly breaking Martha Watson’s 9-year old American Indoor Record of 21-4 ¾…
CLICK HERE to Read the Full Original Article at runblogrun…