Victor Navarra, the retired New York City firefighter who was the start coordinator of the ING New York City Marathon for 25 years, died this morning after being in a coma for two days. He was 56 and had suffered from cancer which had begun in his sinuses.
“The more someone gives in life, the harder it is to lose them,” said ING New York City Marathon race director, Mary Wittenberg, in a prepared statement. “Vic was a giver. In every way. Of his time, energy, emotions and passions.”
Although he was retired, Navarra volunteered to work at Ground Zero after the attacks of 9/11 in 2001, spending long hours on “the pile” as the rescue workers called the massive heap of rubble left after the World Trade Center was brought down. In 2005 he was diagnosed with malignant tumors adjacent to his sinuses. Efforts to eradicate the cancer failed, and Navarra’s health was failing in the lead-up to this year’s marathon. Nonetheless, he was still engaged in the planning process and was still at the start of the race despite losing his eyesight to the cancer.
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J. Oliver Jackson, a member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame who coached track and field athletes from Abilene Christian University who set or tied 15 world records and won four gold medals in the Olympic Games, died Wednesday at 87 years of age.
While Jackson directed Wildcat track and field for 16 years (1948-63), Abilene Christian fielded one of the top collegiate teams in the nation. The Wildcats under Jackson won 78 titles at the Texas, Kansas and Drake Relays, and his athletes also set or tied 17 American records and 15 national collegiate records.
He developed three U.S. Olympic team members - sprinter and National Track & Field Hall of Famer Bobby Morrow, who won gold medals in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 400m relay in 1956 in Melbourne; quarter-miler Earl Young, who won a gold medal in the 1,600m relay in 1960 in Rome; and Billy Pemelton, who placed eighth in the pole vault in 1964 in Tokyo.
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On the blog of Providence Journal sports reporter Carolyn Thornton, runners have been sharing their memories of the late Rhode Island marathoner, Bobby Doyle, who died earlier this month of a heart attack at 58 years old. You can read the posts, or add one of your own, at this link:
http://www.beloblog.com/ProJo_Blogs/running/
In addition, a fundraiser for Doyle’s children (he had three younger children from a second marriage: Brian, 15; Conor, 12; and Mackenzie, 6) will be held in February in Rhode Island, according to George McLaughlin who is organizing the event.
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Ultrarunning legend, 1952 Olympian, New York Road Runners Founding President and pioneer in the field of course measurement and certification Ted Corbitt died Wednesday of cancer in Houston, Texas. He was 87.
Corbitt began his running career as a sprinter in Cincinnati and didn’t run his first marathon until he was 32 years old, placing 15th at the 1951 Boston Marathon. At age 54 he ran his 175th marathon, in Boston, in 2 hours 49 minutes 16 seconds, less than one minute slower than his first marathon 23 years earlier. His fastest marathon time was 2:26:44 in 1958. He ran a total of 199 marathons and ultra races during his career and formerly held American Records at 50 miles, 100 miles and 24 hours.
Shortly after the founding of the Road Runners Club of America in February 1958, Corbitt founded the first RRCA chapter in April of that year, the New York Road Runners Club (now the New York Road Runners). Corbitt was elected as the second president of the RRCA at the organization’s 1960 Annual Meeting.
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University of Florida’s Dr. Robert Cade, the professor who led the group that invented Gatorade, passed away today at the age of 80. Cade’s death was confirmed by The Gainesville (Fla.) Sun after speaking with his family. He reportedly died of kidney failure.
Gatorade has generated more than $150 million for the university since Cade and his fellow scientists developed the sports beverage and named it after the school mascot (The Florida Gator) in 1965.
Cade is survived by his wife and six children.
According to the Associated Press, two-time Olympic medalist Robert Taylor died Tuesday at a hospital in Missouri City, Texas, after becoming ill Monday at the school where he was a teacher. He was 59.
One of the finest sprinters of his era, Taylor won a gold medal in the 4×100m relay and a silver medal in the 100 meters at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.
“Robert had one of the greatest personalities,” friend Terry Henson of Tyler, Texas, told the Tyler Morning Telegraph. “His ability as an athlete was unmatched. He never really got his just due on how great an athlete he really was.”
Porter Robinson, who helped coach Taylor at Texas Southern, told The Associated Press that Taylor had “great, great talent.”
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Today in East Jordan, Mich., a funeral was held for Ryan Shay, the 2003 USA marathon champion who collapsed and died at the USA Olympic Team Trials - Men’s Marathon on Nov. 3, in New York City. He was 28 years-old and had been married only for four months to the former Alicia Craig, the Stanford University star who won the NCAA 10,000m title in 2003 and 2004.
The exact cause of Ryan’s death is still unknown, but it is clear that his heart abruptly stopped at about the 9 km mark of the Trials and, despite heroic and immediate medical intervention, he died before reaching Lennox Hill Hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
I knew Ryan both through my role as a journalist and a race organizer. It would be a stretch to say were close, but we were certainly friendly and shared a passion for the sport. I recruited Ryan to run the 2004 ING New York City Marathon where he set his personal best time of 2:14:08, cracking the top-10 in ninth place. It didn’t surprise me that Ryan would run his best marathon in New York, despite the difficulty of the course. He was so strong and so tough, the kind of runner who was well suited to the hills of the Five Borough Classic. Ryan really had heart.
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ASICS Corporation chairman Kihachiro Onitsuka died on Saturday September 29 of heart failure in a hospital in Kobe, Japan. He was 89.
Mr. Onitsuka was born on May 29, 1918, in Tottori Prefecture in western Japan. Concerned at the sight of the nation’s youth after World War II, he made it his mission to inspire young people and chose the world of sports as a means to fulfill his goal.
In 1949, he started Onitsuka Co. Ltd., the first sports shoe company in Japan. Using many creative ideas, he released epoch-making products.
In 1977, ASICS Corporation was formed through a merger of Onitsuka Co. Ltd, G.T.O. Co., an equipment manufacturer, and Jelenk Co., a sports apparel manufacturer. Mr. Onitsuka became the president and aimed to diversify the business to be more competitive on the global sporting goods market.
In 1992, he became chairman of ASICS Corporation, a position he held until his death. Today ASICS is the fifth largest sports goods manufacturer, making products not only for Olympic Gold medalists, but also ordinary people who do sports to keep up a healthy lifestyle.
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Two runners who participated in the 82nd Comrades Marathon died on Sunday, one during the race and one afterwards. The ultramarathon, which had more than 12,000 entrants, was run over 89.3 km between Pietermaritzburg and Durban.
Michael Gordon (34) died shortly after being helped across the finish line by fellow runners. He apparently suffered a heart attack moments before crossing the line and although he was treated within seconds by the emergency medical team, he was declared dead when he arrived in the fully equipped field hospital in Kingsmead Stadium. It was Gordon’s first Comrades.
Willem Malapi (48) finished soon after Gordon and was also helped across the line by other runners. He was taken to the field hospital and then transferred in a critical condition to Durban’s St Augustine’s Hospital where he died at approximately 20:00 after his heart had stopped for a second time. Malapi was a seasoned runner with 14 Comrades under his belt. The cause of his death was announced as cardiac arrest after he had suffered an electrolyte imbalance.
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Looks can be deceiving. One quick glimpse at runner Sydney Wooderson would likely cause comparisons to Woody Allen rather than a world-class athlete. Despite his small stature and wiry frame, Wooderson was one of the most impressive personalities in amateur running history.
Living to the age of 92, an impressive feat in-and-of itself, he was able to fill his life with an extensive list of accomplishments. By his early 20s a young Sydney was already breaking records in events of varying lengths.
Wooderson was a breakthrough performer in 880yard, 1500m, and 5000m races. Not only did he run in short and mid distances, but he also proved to be a praiseworthy competitor in long range running by taking the national cross-country title, a nine-mile race, late in his running career.
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