Wottle 1972 800m finals video?

JooJooBee wrote:

whats up with running with a hat in the olympics?

I can't remember the details but it's something Dave simply starting doing while at BGSU & he must've liked wearing it. Unlikely we'll ever see another elite runner wear a hat in comp. Doug Brown, steepler from MI & Tenn, former US record holder and 3x Olympian, also wore a hat in the same era.

Somebody else asked about the WR: Dave tied the WR in the Trials, months before the OlyGames @ 1:44.3. And, he qualified for the '72 Oly 1500m also. Dave joined a certain former WR holder from Kansas in that event.

Those were the first Olympics I watched closely and recall in near technicolor all races above 800m for men...Frank, Lasse, Pre, Keino in the steeple...the terrorist attack.

"he has such a bold and positive attitude regarding the two lap race..." the announcer wasn't saying this about Wottle, my lament is do you think we'll ever hear anything nearly this loquacious from an announcer these days?

He sounded like a he could have been announcing a horse race..."stride for stride, shoulder to shoulder are the two Kenyans..."

step up wrote:

do you think we'll ever hear anything nearly this loquacious from an announcer these days?

He sounded like a he could have been announcing a horse race..."stride for stride, shoulder to shoulder are the two Kenyans..."

yes...just check out bbc and not espn

When I lived in upstate NY I could get some Canadian stations. The track announcers were fanstastic, much more informative and creative.

I never saw those splits before. I thought they were perfectly even. Wottle himself recalls that he wasn't confident before the start, and that's why he didn't bolt out with the leaders, starting conservatively.

It was this conservative start which allowed him to overtake everyone as they all died off from their agressive 1st laps, and again, Wottle says that although it looks like he is accelerating, everyone else is in fact slowing down as he simply maintains pace. Everyone comes back to him simply because he maintained, and he knew that was something he could do- hold onto a given pace once he had it. And as noted above, his conservative start also allowed him to run the most efficient tangents, hugging the curb nearly the entire race.

I ran against Wottle in the 71 Bowling Green Cross Country Invite in 71. ( most know he attended Bowling Green ) He beat all american Sid Sink, a graduate of Bowling Green.

He just ran with the lead pack until we hit the track and with 400 to go, he sprinted a 53 last quarter for the win and leave everyone in the dust.

The prior year he had just started to make name for himself in the 800 and 1,500 in college and then in the trials.

The Kenyans and Russians blew each other up vying for the lead from 300 to 700, allowing Wottle to come through for the win.

NOTE that he did not speed up the last 200, they all came back to him, his splits were almost perfectly even for each 200.

Thanks J. What an incredible race. Brings back memories of running with a nasty old golf cap (in the middle of the day in the summer no less - shows what I knew). Don't even know if I consciously knew I was doing it cause Wottle wore one. This really should be required viewing for all young middle distance runners.

I actually ran track and cross country with one of Dave\'s children in college and was able to hang out with him and talk track on several occassions. He had told me that he got the golf hat from working at some random track meet and just kept wearing it to keep his hair out of his eyes while he ran. He actually had a few of those hats; he has one in his office at his house and I believe the one he wore in the Olympics is in the track and field Hall of Fame. Another cool tidbit is that he had intended to focus upon the 1500m at the Olympics and not the 800m. The 800m trials just happened to fall on the same day as a speed workout for him so he and his coach decided to run it. Needless to say, after he won the trials and tied the world record it quickly became his focus for Munich! All that said, Dave is an awesome, down to earth, and very funny guy and I hope that many of you can get to meet him one day. He had some interesting stories from his European trip w/Pre, including Pre locking him in a sauna and turning up the heat until it started to singe his eyebrows! Good stuff.

Think you could get Dave to post on here? Maybe he could do a Q & A session? I'm curious as to his views on Webb (i.e., whether the guy should just focus on 1500/mile or dabble in longer stuff) and also Jennings and a few others. And obviously his training.

I recall once that Wottle described this race as one he wins regardless of which direction you watch it, forward or reverse.

actual splits were hard to see, but after watching it 20 times here is what I got per 200.

Wottle - 26.4...27.0...27.4...26.0

2nd pl - 24.9...27.4...28.0...26.4

they were all slowing down, until the last 200 where all kicked except the guy in last - who died.

interesting to watch where these 1st 2 guys were throughout the race (in last and 3rd from last) till they made their moves.

this race perfectly show 3 good tactical racing styles all in one race. Lead it, take it (with an early move) and steal it (at the end).

lead it - got 3rd

take it - got 2nd

steal it - got 1st

but it could have gone any way...since lead got surprised by the big move at 300...and take it almost got away from the field, and steal it was barely able to catch em' before the line.

the 2 tactically poor racer got 4th and last...both wasted big energy with premature moves and running wide on turns...and of course, all of them could destroy all of me.

I have no idea how accurate these are but from a T&F post:

26.4 / 26.9 / 26.4 / 26.2

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/discussion/viewtopic.php?t=10595

So with a total spread of just .7 seconds, I'd say those are fairly even.

Shawn Crawford wore a hat durig the semi of the 100's in Athens...

he took a lot of heat for it tho...

Thanks ever so much for digging up this video, remember watching this olympic final here 34 years ago like it was yesterday...same as the /72 games marathon...got to see if it's online anywhere..

nahh, I think I remember him saying that he doesn't really keep up with track too much nowadays. I don't think he even really ran much after he retired from the pro circuit in the mid 70's. He's been the dean of admissions at Rhodes College in Memphis for a while.

J Davison wrote:

Every middle distance runner should be required to watch this race and learn. He runs almost identical splits, and he runs the least distance of any runner in the race. He makes all but one move on the straights, running on the shoulder of a competitor coming into the final turn. He didn't waste any energy leading, only doing so in the last few feet. In short, a perfect race.

If you just look at him throughout the race, it seems like everyone else is running like an idiot.

I've always loved this race and all, and it is certainly one of the most exciting in Olympic history, but I don't think I'd use it as a training film for young 800m runners. Giving up that much ground to run even splits is generally not a winning strategy in the 800m. Even Wottle (who was WR holder at the time, I believe) almost didn't pull it off. A lesser runner would have underachieved having to make up that much distance when the leaders were only 25/52. (To be honest, if I were giving an award for smartest race, I'd give it to the Russian.)

I wonder what his splits were for his 1:44.3 WR at the trials?

I'd guess 26, 26.1, 26.1, 26.1.

From the Rhodes.edu website:

"Former Olympian Dave Wottle, who now heads admissions at Rhodes, is a master at goal-setting. When he found himself dead last in the beginning of the 800-meter race at the Munich Olympics in 1972, Wottle set a goal of simply catching up with the pack. He didn’t want to embarrass his friends and family back home.

Within seconds, however, the gawky runner with the golf cap had accomplished that goal and set another. “When I passed the first Kenyan (one of the front-runners), I quickly reassessed my goals and decided to go for a silver medal,” says Wottle. And when he edged ahead of the No. 2 runner, another Kenyan, his goal shifted upward again. He went for the gold."

I've read more detailed interviews by him saying much the same as above. To suggest that Dave was totally confident in the success of his strategy, or was even deliberate in his strategy, may be generous. It certainly appears, from the paragraphs above, that he was hoping, at first, to just not embarass himself on the world stage. His trials success (winning and setting a world record) was apparently unexpected and recent, suggesting that he may not have been too confident in the event.

However, that first paragraph above could be thinly veiled inspirational stuff (set a modest goal, and then set new ones, and you'll be a winner in life as well...).

No getting around it though, Dave was and is a Man.

Your splits add up to 1:46.8 for Wottle, or one second over. Maybe you should watch one more time.