the man with the golden sprint from the golden age of running.
“Yifter the shifter” showing how to run the last lap!!
I like the part at 2620 where the finn gave the ethiopian little push forward. Nothing like a little helping hand to the front.
A legend!
I was surprised to learn that he passed away here in Toronto and that he had actually been living here for the past number of years. But then again not surprised. We have a large Ethiopian immigrant community here in the Toronto area and elsewhere in Canada. A community that has helped create some of our recent greats in distance running - Simon Bairu ( current Canadian 10,000m Record Holder) comes to mind.
Yifter raced in in Toronto many years ago when we had a big indoor meet each winter at the old Maple Leaf Gardens that would sell-out with 15,000 spectators. At the time ( mid 1970’s) the only semi-permanent indoor track in the Toronto area was this ramshackle 200m thing they would set up in an unused building on the grounds of the Canadian National Exhibition every winter. Because it was the only indoor facility at the time it was often full of everyone doing all manner of workouts on the track. Prior to the meet at Maple Leaf Gardens Yifter was there doing a workout. He was somewhat un-noticed at the beginning, but then people did start to take notice and one-by-one and by-groups started to step off the track to watch him run. I can’t remember what sort of interval work-out he was doing but it was an some insane pace with a very quick recovery. Everyone just watched him go around and around for the longest time.
speaking of finns, if you want to see THE BEST finishing kick of ALL TIME in a high level 10,000 meters race, it wasn’t yifter, it wasn’t gebrselassie. it was THIS guy, former sprinter, who kept moving up in distance and finally found his distance, albeit briefly due to injuries. while viren was the double gold winner in 1972 at 5k and 10k, it was this finnish guy who you didn’t want to be in a last lap with. juha väätäinen. more footspeed and umlauts than any 10,000 meter runner possibly, gebrselassie possibly excepted.
He did some coaching session at the C3 tri club years back when first moved to Toronto organized (of course!) by Barrie Shepley. A complete legend.
I remember going to those meets. One year I saw the indoor pole vault record being broken. In the small space of the arena it was pretty cool. Saw Alberto Salazar win an indoor 3000 one year too.
speaking of finns, if you want to see THE BEST finishing kick of ALL TIME in a high level 10,000 meters race, it wasn’t yifter, it wasn’t gebrselassie. it was THIS guy, former sprinter, who kept moving up in distance and finally found his distance, albeit briefly due to injuries. while viren was the double gold winner in 1972 at 5k and 10k, it was this finnish guy who you didn’t want to be in a last lap with. juha väätäinen. more footspeed and umlauts than any 10,000 meter runner possibly, gebrselassie possibly excepted.
well, he certainly made it look effortless (which begs the question:)
I remember going to those meets. One year I saw the indoor pole vault record being broken. In the small space of the arena it was pretty cool. Saw Alberto Salazar win an indoor 3000 one year too.
It’s funny - Athletics or Track & Field is in a funny space these days
What I see on the ground via high school and club programs - a record number of kids participating. I think I read somewhere this year that Track & Cross Country combined, is the #1 participation sport in High School in the U.S. - by a long shot!
Yet despite that, the sport get’s almost zero coverage in the main sports media in North America at the Professional. There is the usual 10 day orgy every four years for the Olympic Games but that is it - back into hibernation. for the interim - it’s like it does not exist! When running does make it in the sports or main news it’s often the freak-show vareity - the dude running a marathon every week all year for some charity. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the media does not cover running and Athletics like they do other sports.
Go back a generation ago and large stadiums would be sold out for indoor track meets in the winter months. Indoor track still goes on, but it’s moved to much smaller venues. No sell-outs of Madison Square Garden or Maple Leaf Gardens these days.
So lot’s going on at the grass-roots level, but in terms of interest at the Professional level it seems to have gone backwards.
This short video of the top 5 greatest finishing kicks in long distance running credits Gebrselassie with #3 and #5.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj29fw25vvA
But my vote for greatest kick finish at the end of a “10K” goes to Bevan Docherty here:
yeah, i saw that. but the last one? in a collegiate race? nope. the real students of T&F know about “cruel juha.” both his 5000 and 10,000 last laps in the '71 euro champs are runs of legend. mind, his last lap in the 10 was run in 53.8, the finish time itself was only 13 seconds off the world record. he really didn’t start his sprint until he was about 75 meters into the last lap. if you haven’t seen that video, of jürgen hasse starting his sprint and juha väätäinen responding, it’s something.
väätäinen was one of the really early proponents of high altitude training. he was way ahead of his time. tho a number of the later finns (maaninka, vainio at least) were either outright dopers or “legal” blood boosters, i don’t see any evidence that väätäinen was among them. he was a bit early for that. but he was constantly at elevation: pyrenees, italian alps, mexico city, alamosa. and it seems as if he was a proponent of big mileage, as in 200 miles a week, which was an important theory at the time (dave bedford, gerry lindgren).
Shorter distance, I know, but no finish will ever be better than Dave Wottle’s (aka the head waiter).
The greatest finishing kick ever has to be in this women’s 4 x 400 relay. You can tune in at 3 minutes and watch the fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVhjAXEyjMI
edited to add: “Here comes UCC from the Depths of Hell!”
wottle is at the top of the list of finishing kicks. and then there is billy mills, only because nobody expected it of him, least of all himself.
The greatest finishing kick ever has to be in this women’s 4 x 400 relay. You can tune in at 3 minutes and watch the fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVhjAXEyjMI
edited to add: “Here comes UCC from the Depths of Hell!”
Was that fun to watch or what!?!