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Lead Stories: Thursday, November 20, 2008

“Best” American Records: 800m - 10000m

Posted March 26th, 2008 at 8:00 AM by Jimmie R. Markham

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, SoundOFF, Columns

Rick Wohlhuter With the 2008 outdoor track & field season upon us, and all of the recent hoopla about the resurgence of American distance running, it’s time to analyze the current middle and long-distance American records, some of which are in jeopardy of falling this Olympic season. Some of them, on the other hand, are almost assuredly safe.

I calculated the variances between the American and World records in all of the “official” middle and long-distance events: 800m, 1000m, 1500m, Mile, 2000m, 3000m, 3000m Steeplechase, 5000m and 10000m runs. So which American record is the “best” according to this calculation?

Rick Wohlhuter’s American record of 2:13.90 in the 1000m, a mark he set way back on 07/20/74, is the “best” American record when compared to its % variance to the world record. The current world record in the 1000m was set by Kenya’s Noah Ngeny back on 9/05/1999. His time was 2:11.96. Wohlhuter’s mark is just 1.470% off Ngeny’s mark.
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Raschker sets records at 2007 National Senior Games

Posted July 12th, 2007 at 3:34 PM by Hariz Siddiqui

Section: News & Results, Track & Field

Masters track and field legend Phil Raschker set one world record and two U.S. records at the 2007 National Senior Games July 1-4 in Louisville, Kentucky.

Raschker set the W60 world record in the 400 meters with her time of 66.69 seconds, bettering the previous record of 67.30 set by Ann Stobaus of Australia in 2001. Raschker’s time in the 100 meter final was 13.67, a significant improvement over the existing world record of 13.89 seconds set by Brunhilde Hoffman from Germany in 1999. However, the wind gauge in that race recorded 2.8 meters per second, over the allowable limit of 2.0 for record consideration.

In the long jump, two of Raschker’s best legal jumps of 4.73 meters/15 feet 6.25 inches, and 4.64m/15-2.75, surpassed the listed American W60 record of 4.55m/14-11 set by Nadine O’Connor in 2006. The triple jump witnessed an even more impressive performance, where Raschker recorded leaps of 9.42m/30-11, 9.46m/31-0.5, and 9.63m/31-7.25 meters, each of which bettered Betty Vosburgh’s U.S. record of 8.05m/26-5 meters established in 1992.

Raschker will continue her assault on the record book at the USA Masters Outdoor Track & Field Championships to be held August 2-5, 2007 in Orono, Maine.
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USATF: 2007 AT&T USA Outdoor Champs mark phenomenal successes

Posted July 6th, 2007 at 3:20 PM by Jeanie Rebb

Section: News & Results, Track & Field

The 2007 AT&T USA Outdoor Track& Field Championships last month in Indianapolis were among the most successful in recent history.

The excitement of close finishes in the middle-distances, a packed house that provided loud encouragement to the athletes, and the fastest 100-200 double in history by Tyson Gay tell a compelling story. Television ratings, Website traffic and merchandise sales all saw significant rises over 2006. These were just a few of countless highlights.

In hard numbers, the meet measures up impressively:

0 - Number of stadium evacuations due to weather.

1 - The number of American records set (Breaux Greer, men’s javelin, 91.29m/299-6).

2 - Number of Visa Champions crowned (Tyson Gay and Tiffany Williams)

4 - Number of national television broadcasts of the meet (2 on NBC, 2 on ESPN2). NBC’s live coverage from 1-3 p.m. on Sunday, June 24, won its time slot and was the #2 sports program of the day on network television. In aggregate, TV ratings for the meet saw a 144 percent increase over 2006.
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