was Shorter drunk before the Munich marathon?

I'm sure he had been drunk before it. He liked beer and he was 24 at the time.

Unlike Ryan Hall he was a bad ass and not a little nancy boy, so I don't doubt it.

Yes and also unlike Ryan Hall, Shorter never ran 2:06 or against the depth of world-class marathoners from around the globe that exist today. Was Shorter good, YES, extremely good, but we're talking about a different era.

In my youth I read that Mr. Shorter stayed up the night prior to his gold medal run drinking beer and trimming weight from his shoes.

That was in my youth. Can't remember who wrote it.

Gold and silver. Should have been gold and gold with PED testing. Olympic medal > time trial by a loooong shot. x2.

Waldemar Cierpinski was a doper, there's no way he can deny it, his name was on top of the list of dopers east germany was supplying. The damn IOC won't "undo the past" in the case of giving an american a gold medal (and another a bronze) but will gladly do it to take away medals from americans...

As far as I'm concerned, Shorter was a double gold olympic marathon medalist.

Henry Rono ran some blazing times after going out and getting plastered, and I actually ran my 5k PR after getting drunk and sleeping for 3 hours the night before, so it wouldn't surprise me.

damn straight. why they don't give shorter the gold over cierpinski is impossible to understand. my memory is that he drank something like six or eight beers the night before munich, his version of carbo loading, or at least that is what I always used to tell people.

His biography, written with Marc Bloom, Shorter says that his diet/drinking habits were greatly exaggerated. If I recall right, he mentions he had a beer or two with dinner the night before Munich, because that's what he usually did with dinner and he didn't see how it could make a difference either way.

I think it's one of those things that gets distorted because it makes kind of a cool story.

is it possible that in the decades after he wished to minimize things like drinking in order to sanitize his lifestory so that it would be a better model for young people in a more moralistic era?

gasser wrote:

Gold and silver. Should have been gold and gold with PED testing.

PED testing never caught Geb, Flo Jo, Michael Johnson, El G, Koch, Jarmila Kratochvílová, Bekele, Straub, etc.

PF Flyer wrote:

In my youth I read that Mr. Shorter stayed up the night prior to his gold medal run drinking beer and trimming weight from his shoes.

That was in my youth. Can't remember who wrote it.

I've also read he and Kenny Moore (4th) stayed up shaking the fizz out of Coke to drink during the race.

Huh, so that's what all these old guys are doing waxing on about themselves on Letsrun?...Sanitizing their life stories?

Liars don't make very good role models.

jjjjjj wrote:

is it possible that in the decades after he wished to minimize things like drinking in order to sanitize his lifestory so that it would be a better model for young people in a more moralistic era?

The book came out in 1983, I'm pretty sure, since the last chapter ends with him handicapping the probably medal contenders for the LA marathon and mentioning how he didn't think he was going to make the team, but he was going to give it a shot and hope he got lucky.

In Kenny Moore's feature on the 1971 Fukuoka marathon (anthologized in "Best Efforts") Moore mentions that Shorter generally had a gin and tonic with lunch, and perhaps one or two at dinner. He specifically mentions in the piece asking Shorter if Shorter minded having his habits detailed, and Shorter says something to the effect of "Well, if I don't run well, people will have a ready-made excuse to blame me for not being focused enough. On the other hand, having a couple drinks with dinner is what I usually do and I'm comfortable with that."

Forgive me for paraphrasing, I can't find my copy of Best Efforts.

Best Efforts, page 254

Exchange between Shibuya-san and Moore:

"Mr. Shorter has much energy."

"Yes."

"Why do you think it is so?"

"He credits it to his drinking."

"He drinks?"

"Oh yes. Lots of beer, and gin and tonic."

Shorter:

"Well, it's me...I sip it to relax and I've always done it. But if I bombed out in the race, a lot of rednecks would say, 'See how that lush drank himself out of contention.' It wouldn't be true, but I'd hate to give them the ammunition."

Thanks to Kenny Moore, the Observer, for a great book.

Shorter did a keg-stand at the final water station in Munich. Pre provided the lager.

I'm pretty sure the accounts that I have read which were written in the 70's but the amount of beer the night before Munich at 6 or 7. So I suppose he was probably legally to drunk to drive but probably had a good tolerance for beer even though his bodyfat was as low as 2 percent.

He seemed to be a regular drinker. Half the population these days might even view people like that as heavy drinkers. In the book "Best Efforts" Kenny Moore describes him as caually having several beers at home in the evening.

PF Flyer wrote:

Best Efforts, page 254

Exchange between Shibuya-san and Moore:

"Mr. Shorter has much energy."

"Yes."

"Why do you think it is so?"

"He credits it to his drinking."

"He drinks?"

"Oh yes. Lots of beer, and gin and tonic."

Shorter:

"Well, it's me...I sip it to relax and I've always done it. But if I bombed out in the race, a lot of rednecks would say, 'See how that lush drank himself out of contention.' It wouldn't be true, but I'd hate to give them the ammunition."

Thanks to Kenny Moore, the Observer, for a great book.

Thanks, sorry again for paraphrasing earlier.

So Frank Shorter was a man?

He drank beer because he wanted to and didn't act like a pussy just because he was a runner?

Awesome. He is my hero.