This Day in Track & Field, October 18, Iolanda Balas first women to clear six feet (1.83m)-1958, Bob Beamon goes 8.90m (1968)!

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

This Day in Track & Field-October 18

1958—Romania’s Iolanda Balaș became the first woman to clear 6-feet (1.83) in Bucharest. It was the 5^th of her 12 World Records.

WR Progression: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women’s_high_jump_world_record_progression

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iolanda_Balaș

1964–Four days after Billy Mills stunned the track world with his win in the 10,000-meters at the Tokyo Olympics, Bob Schul and Bill Dellinger gave American distance running another boost by winning the gold and bronze medals, respectively, in the 5,000-Meters on a muddy track.

France’s Michel Jazy took the lead from Dellinger just as the runners entered the final lap, with  Schul sitting in 5th place. Jazy started to pull away as everyone wondered when Schul would unleash his fabled kick. It finally appeared in the middle of the backstretch, but had he waited too long? Jazy still had a good 5-meters on Schul and Germany’s Harold Norpoth in the middle of the final turn, but then Schul caught the fading Frenchman with less than 100-meters to go and went on to win in 13:48.7.  Dellinger (13:49.8), like Schul a member of the National Hall of Fame, put on his own furious finish and nipped Jazy (13:49.8) at the line to win the bronze medal (Norpoth won the silver in 13:49.6). Schul’s last 400 was 54.8, and that was after a relatively slow first 100. His final 300 split was 38.7, the same that Peter Snell would run in his dominating win in the 1500 two days later!

While Mills arrived in Tokyo under the radar of most experts,  Schul went to the starting line of the 5000 as the favorite. He had the fastest time in the world (an American Record of 13:38.0), had set a World Record for 2-miles in late August (8:26.4), and had shown his speed with a win (3:58.9) over mile specialist Jim Grelle.

But he still had some concerns as the Games approached. “I was very fortunate the Games were held in Tokyo in 1964,” said Schul, who had fought a lifelong battle against asthma. “The…