16 Year Old Debbie Heald wins the USA vs USSR women's mile in a national high school record of 4:38.5. Still the record to this day! That's longer than Jim Ryun's 3:55 stood! She hangs in the back until the end, finishing off a Russian who had just set the indoor 1500m world record the previous week with a blistering kick! Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LrvJ2bsFduY#
Goddam... I'd marry that stride! The way she opens up is beautiful!
Her PR was 4:47 before this race??? BOSS!!!!
The description from the youtube video:
Date: March 17, 1972
Place: The Richmond Coliseum in Richmond, Virginia
Meet: The USSR vs. USA Indoor Meet
Story: Debbie Heald is a 16 year old high school junior running in her first international competition. Three weeks earlier, running for her club team, the La Mirada Meteors, she had qualified for the US team by running a 4:47 mile to place second in the national indoor championship in Madison Square Garden. Her competition in this race is Doris Brown, 29, the US champion and five-time world cross country champion, Tamara Pangelova, 28, who had set the world record in the indoor 1500 meters in the European Championship the previous week and Lyudmila Bragina, 29, who would win the Olympic 1500 in Berlin that summer. Thirty-five years later Debbie's time in this race still stands as the US high school indoor mile record. (In watching this race be aware that this is 160 yard track which requires 11 laps to make a mile. The traditional quarter mile splits are at 2 3/4, 5 1/2 and 8 1/4 laps.)
Her competition is the 5 time World Cross champion, the world record holder in the 1500ms, and the future olympic champion. SHIIIIEEEEEEEET!!!!!!
just a side note the 1972 olympics were in munich, not berlin.
I can't imagine the adrenaline rush she was getting at that moment while beating the 3 toughest competitors on the planet at that time. Sick race.
correction: it wasn't a national record, it was a world record!!!
Thanks for posting. To clarify, and maybe you said this and I just missed it, it stands as an indoor record.
very Jim Ryun-esque.
Article on debbie in 2002
the article says she ran in shoes held together by tape because she couldn't afford new ones.
Psac runner 2323 wrote:
Article on debbie in 2002
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jan/14/sports/sp-pucin14
Good lord that was sad. I hope she's doing better.
Did you notice she was coached briefly in college by Laszlo Tabori, history's third sub-four minute miler?
"Look at Heald, look at Heald"
Crazy good finish by her!
Isn't the high school record 4:35 by Polly Plummer?
Heald has the indoor mile record.
but... wrote:
Isn't the high school record 4:35 by Polly Plummer?
Oh SHUT THE F U C K UP about another L.A. track star from La Mirada High School no doubt. We'tre sick and tired of you L.A. snots bringing up Allyson Felix & Carmelita Jeter crapola.
L.A. SUCKS.
Eugene, Oregon is the ONLY Track Town USA.
LOL the russian assumes 3-point start then lunges to the... back of the field!
Can't see sh!t about anyone's stride from the poor quality. Doris looked pretty solid though. Heald has a weird kick- sprints pas Doris, slows for a bit then slingshots past Pantalova.
One-race wonder I guess but what a race!
how many high school girls have run sub 4:40? Is she the only one indoors? I know Mary Decker ran 4:40. Crazy to think It's been 40 years, is that the oldest high school record indoor or out?
the POWER of los angeles on display. once again
Yeah like HBO Game of Thrones was made in La La Land the gayest HBO series ever made.