In today's The Guardian ,  a story will be overlooked by many, because of the reports on the Super Bowl,  Bad Bunny and Lindsay Vonn's crash on the slopes of Cortina D'Ampezzo.   The Madagascar Rickshaw Runners    click here to read The Guardian article                                                         by Romain Philippon Yeah, I know, you're thinking,  'Rickshaws?  Those are three wheel bikes with two passenger seats.'  True, but the poorer ones don't have the bike frame mounted on the front.  The driver just runs and pulls the load.  Then you're probably thinking,  'Madagascar,  there ain't no good runners over there.'  Right, not yet.  But they may be comin' down the line.                       ...

 We received this piece from Eric Tweit in Huntington Beach, CA Chaffey High School   Second-best high school stadium records? by Larry Knuth   Chaffey HS  Other than California’s Arcadia High School, home to the prestigious Arcadia Invitational, the best high school stadium records might be Chaffey High School (Ontario, Calif.) where four men’s world records and two American records were broken in one afternoon in an inter-squad meet (!).The meet involved the 1956 US Olympic team competing against each other in an Olympic development meet in October before leaving for the Melbourne Olympics that December. World records set were 10.1 for the 100 meters, 213-8 in the hammer throw, 61-4 7/8 in the shot put, and 3:08.6 for the mile relay (The second-place USA team tied the existing world mark.).  In addition, Greg Bell (Indiana U.) missed Jesse Owens’ existing world record in the long jump by two inches with a jump of 26-6½. He also had two other jumps over 26 feet...

 Professor  of History Bruce Geelhoed, Ball State University has asked that I put out a search for information for a book he is preparing to write on George Dales, the coach at Western Michigan University in the 1960's.  As you may recall, Western Michigan won the NCAA cross country championships in 1964 (East Lansing) and 1965 (Lawrence, KS).   Since "Once Upon a Time in the Vest" has covered some of that story, Bruce got in touch with me to see what else might be out there in the minds and files of our readers.                                                     1965 Champs on the way home We have contact with some of the WMU alums, but we are hoping that there might be more out there who can add to the story.   Several other things from that 1960's era are of interest to Bruce and my conversation with him may have ad...

 The lads at the tavern kept the suds a flowin' this past week and I did not even think of posting this old story of the Battle of Agincourt so well documented by one W. Shakespeare,  when cross country was a true sport of nations.  Now days visa procurement, becomes more important than simple invasion of another country in order to compete on their playing fields.  And who the hell would want to invade Greenland in order to run a meet dressed half bare arsed across melting glaciers, or tramping through the oil and tar sands of the Orinoco Valley?  Aye lads instead the swamps north of the Everglades were the scene of  that sacred gathering, dodging stray boa constrictors and drug test units.  That aside, let us go back to better times when there was no question whether to vax or not to vax,  when survival was truly of the fittest. When the cross bow was not yet invented and the long bow was the ultimate weapon in our arsenals. (Military enthusiast...

                                                              Lopez Lomong                                                        Going through Walt Murphy's newsletter "This Day in Track and Field"  yesterday,  Walt mentioned it was the birthday of Lopez Lomong.   As some of you may recall, Lopez was  one of "The Lost Boys" refugees from South Sudan who came  to the US back in 2001.   He was adopted by an American couple who went on to take in five more young men to their home and raise them to adulthood.  Lopez of course went on to running fame, representing his adoptive country in international competition.  In this time of internal turmoil in o...