Shorter's new bio says Viren in '76 was trying to repeat Paavo Nurmi's triple in '48

Shorter is pretty old and may have forgotten. Brant sounds like a ghost writer who doesn't know any better. RW doesn't know any better either.

link?

There are several people at Runner's World who WOULD know this, mainly the older guard. Obviously they didn't get a look at this.

I doubt anyone at RW has ever heard of Zatopek or Nurmi. Hell, most probably had never heard of Shorter before this.

Well done.

Why do these people think that LRC will not catch them?

Ask Mike Rossi.

Ask Kip Litton.

Ask Robert Young.

Ask Alberto.

Ask Paula.

Ask Mo.

Ask Dr. Jeffrey Brown.

Ask Genzebe.

Ask Jama Aden.

Ask Dr. Saugy.

Ask Nick Davies.

Ask Dr. Frederico Rosa.

Ask Jos Hermens.

That is a major fubar - I was looking forward to that book. I'm reading " Today we die a little. " - Zatopek's bio now. Not so sure I'm going to bother with Shorter's after hearing about this.

Viren would've won the marathon as well but he forgot to grab the last bag of reindeer milk from his fridge.

Is it so hard to imagine Shorter would confuse two guys from Europe who competed 20-25 years before he did? Sloppy editing for someone not to fact check it for sure.

That is a massive mistake on several levels. Zatopek's 1952 exploits were not that far in the past when Shorter was running. Nurmi's last Olympics were in 1928 and he would have been in his fifties in 1948. For people of Shorter's generation, it has to be obvious that Nurmi ran before WWII and Zatopek after.

However, Nurmi did win five golds in 1924 (3 individual and 2 team) -- but the events were not the modern distance events. Perhaps Shorter correctly recalled Viren was trying to win three individual golds like Nurmi but over the past forty years forgot the events that Nurmi won.

Still, a horrendous editing/fact checking job.

Nurmi did carry the torch into the stadium in '52 so at least he was there and ran a lap.

Zatopek's feat is one of the most famous in Olympic history. I cannot comprehend how Shorter - or Brant, who has written about Track for many years at RW - could make that mistake. Nor do I understand how Shorter could forget when the 10,000 was run since he had attempted the 10,000/marathon double in '72 and had qualified in both in '76 with the thought of possibly repeating that double effort.

The shame is that this goof distracts from the real crime: Cierpinski's drug-assisted victory. Shorter should be given the gold, Lismont the silver and Kardong the bronze. It may be hard to disqualify many cheaters from decades ago, but the East Germans kept meticulous files. There should be no time limit on disqualifying cheaters.

Aarrgghhh! HELP! How do I delete the extra posts? I fault Shorter for his goof and make my own.

John Brandt makes a lot of such errors. His Duel in the Sun book said that Rodgers won Boston three times. No excuse for such sophomoric errors.

I can give Shorter the benefit of the doubt that he had a brain fart and said Nurmi when he was thinking Zatopek.

How no one else catches this down the line somewhere is mind boggling.

Dumber than the interception Russell Wilson threw at the goal line to give the Steelers the Super Bowl.

Letsrun, with it's collective linguistic and literary excellence and standards of historical accuracy should have ghost-written this book for Mr. Shorter.

Three spelling errors on every page, and for some reason a chapter about Mike Rossi.But God Damnit we wouldn't confuse Zatopek and Nurmi.Shorter is Updatebrojos publihsing houseI'd buy two copies for my one Kindle

The Collective wrote:

Letsrun, with it's collective linguistic and literary excellence and standards of historical accuracy should have ghost-written this book for Mr. Shorter.