U.S. Marathoners Have Been Younger than 28

Other Running Related Topic

17 years ago 04/23/2007 6:08pm EDT

LetsRun.com posted a link to a Apr. 19 newspaper article about marathon trials qualifier Steve Meinelt of Massachusetts (see URL below).

The reporter, Joshua Boyd, wrote (3rd paragraph): "All previous members of the U.S. Olympic Marathon team have been 28 or older, according to Meinelt's manager, Doug Eldridge of DLE Sports Management Group, Inc."

That statement was immediately recognizable as totally untrue. Frank Shorter (USA) won the 1972 marathon gold medal at age 24. No other research is necessary!

Also, Kenny Moore (USA) finished 14th in the 1968 Olympic marathon at age 24. Bob Kempainen (USA) was only 26 when he ran in the 1992 Olympic marathon (17th). Billy Mills (USA) finished 14th in the 1964 Olympic marathon at age 26. There are almost certainly more.

Is this what passes for journalism today? Whatever happened to the old reporter's motto "check it out?" it's pretty easy to look up these facts, particularly Frank Shorter as he is the last US gold medalist in the event. I do not know whether Mr. Eldridge is simply ignorant of the facts (in which case he should not be making such broad claims) or if he is trying to sell the press a story on his athlete.

Best of luck to Meinelt, but his age (he'll be 25 before the 2008 Games) is not groundbreaking.

17 years ago 04/23/2007 6:49pm EDT

re: Gator

Props go out to Meinelt for kicking some butt. Better than I have done, but this piece of journalism just sucks. We saw above the lack of ability to look something up but how about the poor editing also.

"Meinelt finished the Jan. 14 Chevron Houston Marathon with a time of two hours, 18 minutes and 14 seconds (2:14:18), an incredible time considering it was his first marathon ever."

They couldn't even correctly line up the hours, minutes and seconds... Ouch!

17 years ago 04/26/2007 1:36am EDT

re: poor journalism

After thinking about it for a while I began to wonder if Meinelt's manager's claim that he was the "youngest qualifier thus far for the Nov. 3 U.S. Olympic Marathon team trials" was even true.

It isn't. According to the article, Meinelt will be 24 in May, so he must have been born in May 1983. But Hansons-Brooks team member Nick Arciniaga was born on June 30, 1983, and qualified in Chicago (10/22/2006) with a 2:16:58, so he's younger, faster, and earlier-qualified than Meinelt.

There are others on the USATF list of qualifiers that are younger than Meinelt.

Do the words "honest" and "manager" even belong in the same sentence? Again, best of luck to Meinelt, but his manager, Doug Eldridge, should find another way to motivate his athlete. He's good at publicity, though; Runner's World even picked up the article and repeated the claim that Meinelt was the youngest qualifier.

And, finally, neither of the two times mentioned in the newspaper article are correct--USATF and Chevron state that his official (clock) time was 2:18:15.

17 years ago 04/26/2007 2:35am EDT

re: Gator

Al Salazar was 25 when he made the team in 1984 (although I believe he turned 26 shortly before running the Olympic marathon itself). And he was already past his prime by then!

Perhaps there was a miscommunication -- for example, a reference to "all members of the previous U.S. Olympic marathon team" could have been reported as "all previous members of the U.S. Olympic Marathon team." But I agree that there's some bad information in that article.

17 years ago 04/26/2007 6:29am EDT

re: Avocados Number

John Tuttle was born in October 1959 which would have him at 24 during the 1984 Olympics.

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