In 1968 they had 2 Olympic Trials and guys who won the first one thought they were on team but weren’t

Most references that I've seen to the shower stuff seems to present as maybe some sort of initiation ritual or something along those lines. It seems that a fair number of guys who experienced it were okay about it or at least acted like they were. One of the guys I know that it happened to definitely was not.

I've heard that one reason was to maximize the chances of getting Ryun into the team. He had not run the LA Trial so if they kept the original arrangement he'd have had two spots to qualify for. Tossing LA's results gave him three chances.

Standard hazing response. people differ where the line is but this stuff would be way off the line these day..

Just reread it and it makes sense to me. But thanks for taking your time out to point that out:)

Then who were the other "guys" besides Dave Patrick? The plural means more than one.

Absolutely terrible quality, but here is the video of the 1968 1500m Trials at Lake Tahoe.

50.9 for Ryun’s last lap.

What I'd really like to see is the video of the 1968 Olympic Trials 800 meters, in which world record holder Jim Ryun ran 2:02.6. The second-place finisher, Wade Bell, had been closely following Ryun and had to furiously accelerate past him to make the team.

Here are the results:

http://trackfield.brinkster.net/OlympicTrials.asp?TourCode=T&Year=1968&Gender=M&TF=T&P=F&By=Y&Count=

Actually, Ryun was the world record holder at 880 yards, not 800 meters. The holder of the 800 meters was still Peter Snell. I apologize for the mistake.

As we old timers know, Jim Ryun missed the first 1968 trials, held in June, because he was still recovering from mononucleosis and various niggling injuries. He should have easily qualified for the 800 meters at Echo Summit but--either mentally or physically--could not pull it off on the day. So holding a second trials to allow him to make the team at the 800 and the 1,500 was only partially successful.

The ostensible reason for a trials at altitude was to require distance runners to demonstrate that they could handle it. But the 800 meters isn't really affected by altitude. The gold medalist at Mexico City, Ralph Doubell of Australia, tied Peter Snell's world record (1:44.3). So altitude was not a factor.

Which means that the top three finishers at the first trials should've been on the team, because they didn't need to demonstrate fitness at altitude and Ryun couldn't deliver at the second 800 meter trials.

At the first 800 meters, the top three were Wade Bell, Felix Johnson, and Mark Winzenreid. Of those three, only Wade Bell made the top three at Echo Summit (Tom Farrell, Wade Bell, and Ron Kutschinski). The second trials was very fortunate for Tom Farrell, because at the first 800 trials he finished fourth.

So you have something similar to the Dave Patrick fiasco, because the need to prove yourself at altitude was unnecessary at that distance and Jim Ryun was unable to make the team in the 800, which was the real reason for having a second trials.