This Day in Track & Field History, May 19, Jan Merrill sets 5,000m AR (1979), by Walt Murphy

Walt Murphy’s News and Results Service  (wmurphy25@aol.com)

This Day in Track & Field–May 19

1956–-Duke’s Dave Sime ran 9.3 for the first time at the Carolinas AAU meet in Raleigh to equal the World Record for the 100-yard Dash (he would run 9.3 twice more).   The record for the metric version of the 100 was also equaled on this day when Bobby Morrow ran 10.2 at the South USA meet in Houston. Morrow would go on to win 3 gold medals (100, 200, 4×100) at the Melbourne Olympics later in the year, while a previous injury forced Sime to pull up in his heat of the 100 at the U.S. Trials. Both men are members of the National Hall of Fame.

    Sime, who would win a silver medal in the 100 at the 1960 Olympics,  was an “accidental” sprinter who excelled in baseball, football, and basketball in high school. Working out with the track team to get in shape for baseball during his freshman year at Duke, his speed caught the attention of track coaches Bob Chambers and Al Buehler. “I never saw anything like him,” Buehler said.  “He could really move. We timed him in the 100-yard dash on a field that wasn’t groomed, and he ran the distance in 9.8 seconds.  We knew he could do better after some training, and we were ecstatic.  He had enormous talent and intelligence and was a hard worker.”  Read more at the link below.

    His grandson is San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey.

NY Times Obituary:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/16/sports/dave-sime-once-the-worlds-fastest-sprinter-dies-at-79.html

Sime & The CIA!:

www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/may/17/olympics-dave-sime-cia-1960-rome-ukrainians-defect-soviet-union

WR Progression (100m): https://worldathletics.org/records/by-progression/16647

1963—Arizona State’s Henry Carr ran 20.4 in Tempe, Arizona, to set an American Record for 200-meters. Carr would win Olympic gold in the 200 and 4×400 in Tokyo the following year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/08/sports/football/henry-carr-gold-medalist-and-then-a-giant-dies-at-73.html

1973—Francie Larrieu regained the American Record in the Mile from Doris Brown when she ran 4:38.7 at the Bakersfield Classic.

Larrieu had set the first of her six American Records in the event when she ran 4:41.5 on June 5, 1971, only to have Brown lower the mark to 4:41.3 the next day, and then to 4:39.6 on June 12.

Dwight Stones set many records during his Hall-of-Fame career, but he might have set one here that won’t show up in any stats…