Chapter 28
ONE SECOND
Athletics Gazette July 14
Both the women’s 1500 and the men’s 5000 at the Olympic Trials Thursday looked like the blanket finish of a 100-meter sprint. Determining an Olympic team on the basis of 100ths of a second is simultaneously fascinating and sobering. The winners are elated but their joy is mixed with an equal portion of relief. The losers are doubtless as talented as their compatriots who will don Olympic team blazers.
Sarah Herrington of St. Louis placed fourth in the 1500 in her fourth straight Olympic Trials. Her time of 4:00.41 was less than a half-second slower than winner Janice Harper of Corvallis, Oregon, who ran 4:00.29. Sandwiched between Herrington and Harper were Janelle Madison, of New York City and Kelley Kirkland of St. Louis, who split the second further with times of 4:00.33 and 4:00.36.
Herrington suffered fractures to both femurs when she was struck by a car outside the stadium, moments after the race. Dr. Elwood Zirbel told Athletics Gazette, “Her prognosis is good for a return to running within a year. The psychological damage is impossible to assess at this early date,” said Zirbel, a Knoxville orthopedic surgeon.
Chuck Madras, John Corbin, and Kivato Wapiti won the three coveted spots in the men’s 5,000-meter event. Madras, from Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, lunged at the line for victory in 13:04.21. Officials at the Trials studied the photo timer images from both the left and right sides of the finish line to determine second and third place. Corbin of Cleveland was credited with 13:04.25 and Wapiti, of Havatura, New Mexico, broke the beam in 13:04.30. Two others crowded into the half-second that determined the Olympic team: Kyle Bell of Baton Rouge placed fourth in 13:04.33 and Bill Szymczak, St. Louis, clocked 13:04.41.
“The first five men all deserve a berth on the Olympic team in the 5000,” commented Armando Animas, coach of Wapiti. The nineteen-year-old Pueblo Indian dropped out of the 10,000 meters six days earlier, despite holding a three-hundred-meter lead with one hundred meters to go.
“Kivato has his own motivations,” Animas explained, when asked about his charge’s unconventional actions. “We focused all year on the 10,000. His mis-applied loyalty to a friend [Cecil Medley–AG] led him to drop out before the finish in the ten. He ran a sixteen-second PR in the 5,000, so he earned his place on the team legitimately.”
Animas concluded: “These events aren’t for the mentally fragile. When you have twelve fit and courageous young people willing to run themselves to collapse, only three can be completely successful. The other nine leave with doubts about whether it was worth the pain and effort. Despite their disappointment today, four years from now, many of them will return to give it another shot.”