V 14 N. 28 Some Spirited Writing and Old Track Photos

 

I've recently discovered a writer James Runcie who has some serious gifts with the pen.  His series on an Anglican priest named Sidney Chambers has been turned into a British TV detective series called "Grantchester".   The book I'm currently reading is "The Great Passion" a novel about the German composer Johan Sebastian Bach and his composing of the St. Matthew Passion.   "Why" you ask "does this have any place on a track and field blog?"  My answer is that Runcie occasionally throws in sayings and metaphors that could only come from someone who has had some experience, no matter what the level, with the world of track and field or distance running.   So as I promised earlier, I will continue to send some old photos your way and throw in some of James Runcie's quotes from "The Road to Grantcheser" (RTG) and "The Great Passion." (TGP).  I've also thrown in quotes from a variety of other writers.

“to find stillness in the middle of movement.”― James Runcie, Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the

Night                                                         

Pat Daniels Winslow

Lucinda Williams

RTG P. 151  "It's meant to be.  But you don't have to do everything all at once.  People don't become marathon runners or surgeons or concert pianists overnight.  You need training.  And you can always apply and see how it goes.  If it is not for you then you'll know soon enough.  You can always go on and do something else, Olympic swimming, perhaps..... 

Hans Harting and Wim Slijkhuis 

“I don’t mean religious faith. I mean faith in our own abilities. We have to do the best we can with the talents we have, Geordie. The future is too unpredictable for anxiety.”
― James Runcie, Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death

Wim Slijkhuis and hardware

                               “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”

                                                                            — Tim Notke

Elias Gilbert

“The race was not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, he told himself. Time and chance happened to them all, and it was vital, above all, to hold a steady course.”

— James Runcie

Kathy and I watched the entire Grantchester series and loved it although we could never figure out why an Anglican vicar was always helping to solve murders.  Most certainly James Runcie was a runner.  His quotes are worthy of Grantchester.

   I loved the picture of Elias Gilbert although I have seen pictures of him completely flattened out over the hurdles.  Either this picture was early in his career or a split second before he collapsed atop the hurdles.  

   Just like almost every NFL player was at one time a T&F athlete, the same can be true for so many others not in athletics.  Maybe it was just a grade school field day, but almost all of us gave this sport a try and found it more difficult than we anticipated.  Bill Schnier

Coach Wehrner, the Ashenfelters and Curtis Stone

Some coaching advice?

TGP  P. 131   'When we think of the behavior of other people,' he began,  'we have to remember that almost everyone is frightened of something.  It might be a confrontation that we are worried about, a piece of work, a continuing illness or the death of a friend, but we should keep in mind that if nothing lasts in this world then the very thing that we dread the most cannot last either.  All things must pass.   The moment we have feared approaches.  It takes place.  Then it becomes the past:  and only a memory.  So, rather than dreading the moment, perhaps we should look forward to the memory of it instead?  We must learn to think beyond our fears.  Perhaps you are too young to contemplate this, but one day; I promise, you will understand.'

Bruce Dern  U. Penn

“All this front’s a bluster. I spend most of my life acting.’ ‘I think we all do that; we play different parts depending who we are with and the situation we are in.’ ‘But don’t you ever want life to just stop, Sidney?”
― James Runcie, Sidney Chambers and The Forgiveness of Sins: Grantchester Mysteries 4

Barbara Brown

“I can’t allow myself to tire. I’ve already run off the cliff. I just have to keep remembering not to look down.”

— James Runcie

Iffley Road Plaque

                               “Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise.”

                                                                             — Anonymous

                                                    

                                                               Don Bowden in high school

“I like it when no one knows what I’m going to do next. It makes everything more exciting.”

— James Runcie

                                       

“Autumn was his favourite time of year, not simply for its changing colours but for the crispness in the air and the sharpness of the light. As the leaves fell the landscape revealed itself, like a painting being cleaned or a building being renewed. He could see the underlying shape of things. This was what he wanted, he decided: moments of clarity and silence.”

— James Runcie

RTG P. 154 '.....But if it feels that you should be doing it, then you must carry on and see where it takes you.  It's almost impossible to know what God has in store for us or who we are going to become.  That's part of life's journey.  If we knew all along, life would be so predictable that it wouldn't be worth living.'

RTG P. 15    "The Lieutenant Colonel argues that the infantry is ultimately about hand-to-hand combat.  It's all about the battle for the 'next hundred yards'.  In junior athletics, Kendall had run that distance in thirteen seconds.  Now, he says it's going to take them a week to cover the same length of ground."

Texas Longhorn team with Coach Clyde Littlefield, Publicity photo before

Texas Relays

“There was no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes.”

— James Runcie

George,

I love reading these inspirational quotes and passages!!! Thank you for your continuous research and bringing them to light.   Carol Inskeep

V 14 N. 27 Tribute to a Young Warrior by Dr. John Telford

 

I recently received a note from Dr. John Telford in Detroit, Michigan.  Many of you will remember John as one of the nation's top 440 yard runners in the late 1950's.  He competed for Wayne State University in his undergrad days.   His letter contains a poem he wrote about Giovanni Scavo, an Italian runner of great promise, who died prematurely in a car crash in Italy.  John had raced against Giovanni only a short time before the accident.  

                                          Giovanni Scavo                                     John Telford                     

Downtown Monitor

GREATER DETROIT'S ORIGINAL FREE PAPER THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2024 — 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2024  

p. 4

In 1957, in summer-time Bologna, 

/ Upon *REUNIONE INTERNAZIONALE,

/ I defeated Scavo in the QUATTROCIENTO METRI.

/ I was twenty-one; he'd just turned nineteen 

/ ATLETICA LEGGERA'S *ENFANTE IL TERRIBLE! 

/ Before the race the sold-out crowd

/ Had chanted "Scah-vo!" really loud. 

/ Afterward we traded pins and promised that we'd write: 

/From ITALIA by slow freighter 

/Came this letter two months later—

/ "John and Gio run one-two in 

/ Rome Olympics, 1960!" 

/ Just before, I'd read he'd driven 

/Fast and far in his Ferrari 

/ Toward the reaches of the Marches,

/ From the famed Eternal City—

/ Crashing high up on a mountain 

/ Near the heights of the Abruzzi 

/ And there died in his Ferrari. 

/ ITALIA mourned her ***CAMPEONE—

/ The champion runner, Giovanni.

Pronunciation - *RAY-YOU-nee-OH-nay EEN-tair-NATCH-ee-oh-NAH-lay

**AIN-FON-tay EEL-tair-EE-blay 

***KOM-pay-OH-nay

 

                                                         John Telford,  Giovanni Scavo, and Lang Stanley

In late June of 1988, long after that hard 400-meter race

(see above post-race photo of me, Scavo, and my U.S. teammate

Lang Stanley), I was vacationing in Cancun with my wife and

daughter, and we were seated at a dinner floor show with an

Italian gentleman and his wife and daughters. He had been

in the crowd in Bologna when I raced against Scavo, and he

had kept a scrapbook on him. When I showed him my identi-

fication, he insisted on paying for our drinks and our dinners.

Back in early August of 1957 when I had arrived home to De-

troit from that European track tour, I read in the newspaper

of Scavo's death; then in September, the mailman delivered

his late-coming letter to me: it was like getting a letter from

a ghost.

-Dr. John Telford is a former superintendent of the Detroit Public

Schools. Read his columns in the Detroit Native Sun, hear him on WCHB

AM1340 Saturdays at 9:30 a.m. and Mondays at 6:30 p.m., on WJZZ TV

Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m., and on DETipTV.com all week 24/7.

Contact him at DrJohnTelfordEdD or at 313-460-8272

In researching this post, I found the following article (translated from Italian) about another untimely death of an Italian runner Giorgio Lo Giudice.  Giovanni Scavo is also mentioned, and it sometimes gets confusing who the writer is talking about.  The translation is not into the most understandable English.  I've edited it a bit to help.    George

Giovanni Scavo, a memory lasting 60 years

05 April 2019

Brilliant middle distance talent, probable protagonist of the Rome '60 Games, died at the age of 23 in a car accident on 9 April 1959

by Giorgio Cimbrico

“We met by chance in Bari, for a Intermilitary meeting, and he asked me if I could give him a hand with the (pacing in the )1500: he needed it to prepare for the 800 for the Athlete's Easter.  'Of course I'll give you a hand', I replied: I led up to 1000 and he won in a time that I think was around 4 minutes. Three days later I read in the newspaper that he was dead": this is the story of Giorgio Lo Giudice, the same age as Giovanni Scavo , swept away at the age of 23, like his old Vespa, hit by a car near the Stadio delle Palme, in Palermo , sixty years ago.

“The heroes are all young and beautiful”, sang Francesco Guccini. And those who are taken by destiny after a few, very few years spent on this earth end up conquering a special aura, counterpointed by a forest of "ifs", of unanswered questions, to be placed in dimensions unattainable except with imagination or affection: would it have been Giovanni Scavo who deprived Mario Lanzi of a historic Italian 800 record? Could he have troubled Peter Snell and Roger Moens in the Olympic final in Rome, which took place a year and a half after his death? Questions that are repeated by those who have retained a memory of the young man who saw the light in Ascoli Piceno, but he  of paternal Sicilian roots (his father was a  colonel), which is close to a cult, like one of the clubs in Velletri - a Roman town where I had moved - who associated that surname with the company name and is about to remember the sixtieth anniversary of that broken life.

In all human and sporting events there is a day of days: for Scavo it was June 21, 1957, in the Parisian stadium named after a champion who fell in 1914, in the first autumn of the war: Jean Bouin, known as the little Hercules of Marseille. At the start Giovanni found the Hungarian Lajos Szentgali, European champion three years earlier at the Wankdorf in Bern, and above all the Belgian Roger Moens who in '55, in the Bislett of Oslo, a crossroads of historical limits, in 1:45.7 had put an end , after sixteen years, to the long reign of Rudolf Harbig. That 1:46.6 at the Milan Arena, shortly before the storm of the Second World War began (which would devour the magnificent Saxon) was a dive into the future, exactly like Jesse Owens' 8.13. Mario Lanzi, a solid "Ligurian" (as Gianni Brera liked to point out) born on the banks of Ticino, ran 1:49, finding himself among the best ever.

In Paris Moens closed just above 1:47 ahead of Szentgali, 1:48.9, and Scavo who in 1:49.2 came close to one of the noblest limits of Italian athletics. Almost four months later, in the closing meeting of the season at the Olimpico (13 October of the 5000m world record, set by Vladimir Kuts at 13:35.6), Gianni would provide solid confirmation: 1:49.3, behind the Greek Depastas .

Just like Harbig and Lanzi, Scavo possessed, in addition to elegance, a strong ability to carry speed. This is demonstrated by his personal best in the 400m, 47.2, which he achieved the following year, the season that saw him come close to an important podium: at the European Championships, held at the Olympic stadium in Stockholm, fourth in the 4x400m, a few tenths behind bronze medalist Sweden, in the company of Nereo Fossati, Mario Fraschini and Renzo Panciera.

Inserted on the list of probable Olympians, Giovanni had left Rome after Assicurazioni Generali had guaranteed him a job as an accountant in the Palermo office. That day he had gone to book a seat on the flight to Milan. For that Easter that he didn't run.

Bill Schnier  "These stories remind me of Pre and Ivo Van Damme. If you have ever been in Italy you know that they drive like maniacs, always taking major chances.  Thanks for remembering these people thereby enabling others to realize they actually existed and their lives were not lived in vain."

In re-reading Dr. Telford's work, I'm reminded of two sculptures.  First The Dying Gaul  a Greek work copied over by the Romans.  The Dying Gaul, also called The Dying Galatian or The Dying Gladiator, is an ancient Roman marble semi-recumbent statue now in the Capitoline Museums in Rome. It is a copy of a now lost Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic period thought to have been made in bronze. Wikipedia

And then  The Dying Warrior

From the Glyptotek in Munich

V 14 N. 26 Kenyan Marathon Team Announced and Some Old Photos to Prod Your Memories

 Kenya has announced it's two marathon teams for the Paris Olympics, three men and three women and two alternates.   

Here they are

Kenya Women’s Olympic Marathon Team

• Peres Jepchirchir (2:16:16, London 2024)
• Brigid Kosgei (2:14:04, Chicago 2019)
• Hellen Obiri (2:25:49, New York City 2022)
• Alternate: Sharon Lokedi (2:23:23, New York City 2022)

Kenya Men’s Olympic Marathon Team

• Eliud Kipchoge (2:01:09, Berlin 2022)
• Benson Kipruto (2:02:16, Tokyo 2024)
• Alexander Munyao (2:03:11, Valencia 2023)
• Alternate: Timothy Kiplagat (2:02:55, Tokyo 2024)

Eliud Kipchoge will be going for his third gold in the marathon and could not easily be denied a place on the team even though some young upstarts have been running faster lately.  They will just have to be patient.  Kipchoge started as a 5,000 meter guy in what seems like many years ago and paid his dues to be on the throne where he now resides.  He's also a credit to the sport, to life, and to helping the next generation move up the ladder.   Unfortunately some youngster who merits on performance this year will have to wait.   Such is life, such is sport.   It would have been an interesting selection process to witness as a fly on the wall.

Some old photos that some of you may even remember, but most likely none of you really.   Over the fourteen years I've been doing this blog, I've collected a lot of historic and not so historic pictures which I will be sharing in future blogs.  Here is the start.

Jackie Robinson for UCLA in the Coliseum

Jay Birmingham after completing his cross US run

Keino Jazy and Clarke

Keino

Clarke, Lindgren and some other guys (White City?)

Lindgren and Clarke post race

Mickey Gorman at Boston

Shigeki Tanaka Hirosh  Boston 1951

Siegfried Hermann

Tommie Smith over Lee Evans  44.8

Willie Nelson at the Austin City Limits

Zatopek at Cross Des Nations Paris

Zatopek

Miki Gorman and  Peter Buniak aka Jerome Drayton

after Boston win

Dual meet crowd at U. of New Mexico with Abilene Christian

Juergen May

Josef Odozil

V 14 N. 25 Ramona, Oklahoma Just Became the Center of World for Discus Throwing, Displacing Antilope Valley, CA

 

                                                                   Mykalos Alekna-Lithuania

Antilope Valley in Southern California has been supplanted as the Mecca of throwing for men and women of the discus by Ramona, Oklahoma.    In case you are wondering about Antilope Valley see the following link to a July 9, 1973 Sports Illustrated story about that hallowed ground.  Antilope Valley Wins in Their Sails  link

A "Field of Dreams" has been built in Ramona, Oklahoma. (Location about half way between Tulsa and Bartlesville as the crow flies).    However Kevin Costner will never get past central casting for this  'Field'.  We'll need someone like Duane Johnson to play the role of  Caleb Seal (throwing coach at U. of Tulsa) who seems to have put together a throwing ground where there's enough room you won't hit a Wendy's or a grade school if you have an errant toss of the discus, which is about the only reason you might want to migrate to Ramona.  It's flat and the wind blows fairly steadily which is what discus throwers like, because 'they ain't no rule against the wind a blowin'  in a discus slingin' contest'.  I think Strother Martin said that in 'Cool Hand Luke'.  But don't quote me on that one.

Seems Mr. Seal organized a gathering of behemoths who can spin like prima ballerinas in an eight feet two and a half inch diameter circle.  Amongst this gang of giants was a young Lithuanian lad of no mean DNA heritage.  His name Mykolas Alekna son of two-time Olympic discus champion Virgilijus Alekna, now a member of parliament in the Lithuanian government.  Virgilijus' all time best throw was 73.88 meters or 242 feet 5 inches, just shy of Juergen Schult's 74.08 meters in 1986 or 37 years 9 months prior to this Ramona, Oklahoma weekend.  Mykolas' report card showed that he had a silver at the 2022 WC's in Eugene and a bronze last year in Budapest.  

On Sunday April 14, 2024, in Ramona  Mykolas Alekna put together the following series.  The screams of his fellow competitors out decibeled the wailing from the Baptist church down the road.

    Round 1:    72.21 meters        236'  10"

    Round 2:    70.32    "              230'   7"

    Round 3     72.98    "              239'   1"

    Round 4     70.51    "              231'   4"

    Round 5     74.35    "              243'   10"   WR   Sorry Daddy, you are only #2 in the family now, and                                                                                         please pass the perogies.  

    Round 6     70.50    "              231'    3"

If you don't believe this, go to the youtube site:     Mykalos Alekna's WR Series  link

All six throws are shown in the video but it starts with the WR.   Normal speed and slow motion of every throw.  See you in Paris, Mykolas.

Additionally over the weekend on Saturday the Cuban thrower Yaime Perez threw into the all time tenth position for women with a 73.09 meter toss.

In case you are thinking of travelling to Ramona in the near future to try your hand at the discus or just to see this remarkable throwing ground, here are few bits and pieces of the town's history from Wikipedia.

Why Ramona?  Maybe Because It's There?

Ramona is a town in Washington County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 535 at the 2010 census.  It peaked out in 1920 with a population of 793.  

History

The town began as Bon-Ton, (some Cajuns outta the Bayou come up dere?) but changed its name to Ramona in 1899 in honor of the Helen Hunt Jackson novel of the same name.

Ramona was an oil town and was also a stop for the Santa Fe railroad. When the oil dried up, there was no other industry to support Ramona, so the town began to die out. Very little business remains in the town, aside from a garage, a bank, a medical clinic, a small grocery, and sundry other small businesses. For 30 years the town was under the jurisdiction of the Washington County Sheriff's Office, after the police department disbanded and the Chief of Police was sentenced to prison. Under the leadership of the former mayor, the late Robert Fiddler, the police department was reinstated, the water lines were repaired/replaced, and a grant was accepted from the Cherokee Nation to repave the streets. The town also supplies natural gas service to the Wal-Mart distribution center five miles north of town.

Recently, under the mayoralty of Cyle Miller, the Cherokee Nation opened the Cherokee Casino Ramona off U.S. Route 75 and Road 3200, which is a significant boom to the local economy. This led to Ramona annexing a considerable portion of land and greatly increasing the size of Ramona proper.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 0.8 square miles (2.1 km²), all land.

Demographics

]

As of the census^[3] of 2000, there were 564 people, 245 households, and 161 families residing in the town. The population density was 735.6 inhabitants per square mile (284.0/km²). There were 265 housing units at an average density of 345.6 per square mile (133.4/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 72.70% White, 0.18% African American, 14.72% Native American, 0.18% from other races, and 12.23% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.24% of the population.

Another note from the editor;   When you realize that Mickey Mantle grew up only about 60 miles from Ramona in the town of Commerce, you can understand why this part of Oklahoma is particularly sacred.

Thank you, Bill for your story of a chance encounter with Jay Sylvester.  When these kind of unexpected meetings happen many are often too shy to have a conversation.  Where to begin.  Just have to remember they are human beings too with all the fears and strengths of interaction.

V 14 N. 24 Olga Fikotova Connolly R.I.P.

 

                                                                         Olga Connolly

                                                                   Photo from Olympedia

A week or so ago, Walt Murphy noted in his  "This Day in Track and Field" the passing of Olga Fikotova Connolly.   With permission, here are Walt's words.

R.I.P.--Olga Fikotová-Connolly, the 1956 Olympic gold medalist in the Women’s Discus, passed away on Friday, April 12, at the age of 91. (see below a note from her children)

           Career Highlights

           5-time Olympian—Discus (’56-gold medalist, ’60-7^th, 1964-12^th), 

             1968—6^th, 

              1972-Qual. Round)

           5-time U.S. Champion (1957,1960,1962,1964,1968) 

           Set 4 American Records (best of 185-3 [56.46]/1972)

           Won the Olympic gold medal while competing for her native Czechoslavakia. While at the Games 

              In Melbourne, she fell in love with American Hal Connolly, who won the gold medal in the Men’s 

              Hammer Throw.  Coming during the Cold War, their love affair made them media darlings 

              in both countries. Couple was divorced in 1975.

           With Czech icons Emil and Dana Zátopek serving as witnesses, the couple got married in Prague in

              1957, despite initial objections from the Czech government.

           Said Olga, “…admittedly, it was unheard of that anyone would get across the Iron Curtain and get 

               married, but after much verbal fighting with the administration in Prague, enthusiastic support 

               from newspapers abroad, and approval by [US. Secretary of State] Mr. Dulles in the U.S.A. and 

               President Zápotocký in Czechoslovakia we received permission.”

        At 91, she had been the oldest living American female Olympian in T&F at the time of her passing

For additional reading on the subject I've put a link below to "The Olympians" that focuses not only on Olga and Hal around the time of the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo but also on several other love stories of athletes from that Games.    ed. 

The Olympians    link