Forty years ago, the dual meets between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. were, in the perspective of American sports fans, the most important of all track and field competitions, with the possible exception of the Olympic Games, where interest still turned on the medal counts between the two...
I have thought that these meets provided the stimulus for the running boom of the seventies and not Shorter's Gold medal. I think the importance of a track meet between the powers that could destroy the world made track seem to me, Shorter, and our entire cohort, worthy. That and the inspiration of a high school kid, Gerry Lindgren, beating the Russians, made anything possible and all the difficulty of training worth pursuing beyond the usual age of retirement at college graduation. Tom Derderian ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Ruth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, August 19, 2002 3:07 AM Subject: t-and-f: List Inactivity > Earlier today, John Beattie put up a "test" to ask whether the list server > was down. From that, and Mike Prizy's response, obviously, it wasn't. Also, > Zbigniew Jonik managed to put up the Zywiec Cup results. Otherwise, it must > have been the least active Sunday I can ever remember for the t-and-f list. > > Fair enough, if nothing of interest is happening. I wonder, though, why > there seems to be no interest in the U.S./RUS/GBR meet in Glasgow. I may > just be feeling bitchy because my ancient Mac Performa consistently crashes > before I can get any information about Dragila vs. Feofanova from the UK > Athletics link of the Track and Field News website, or any other result > except (surprise!) that Chambers, the UK rep, won the 100m. However, the > way this meet has been organized and (non-) reported seems very strange to > this old-timer. > > Forty years ago, the dual meets between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. were, > in the perspective of American sports fans, the most important of all track > and field competitions, with the possible exception of the Olympic Games, > where interest still turned on the medal counts between the two. I would > have thought that the best promotion of the Glasgow meet would have > featured a renewal of this rivalry, even though USA/RUS must be admitted to > be a less equal contest. > > I remember that, earlier, someone on the list questioned whether USA would > field a true national team for this meet. If they didn't, that might > explain the lack of public interest (for example, less TV sports mention > than arena football or women's boxing!). If they didn't, the question still > remains of why not. > > Subscribers will have noted the welcome increase in contributions by USATF > communications staff to the list. Why did they basically pass on this one? > > Cheers, > Roger > >
