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 Smashing success Recent record-breaking binge nothing new to track
Posted: Friday July 09, 1999 02:38 PM
By Ryan Hunt, CNN/SI As the old cliché goes, records were made to be broken. In track and field, they were made to be broken in bunches. In the last three weeks, three major records have fallen -- the 100 meters (Maurice Greene), the decathlon (Tomas Dvorak) and the mile (Hicham El Guerrouj). But track's recent binge is far from record breaking. During the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, nine major records were broken in seven days -- the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 400m hurdles, 4x100m relay, 4x400m relay, triple jump and long jump. That occurred, however, in an era when electronic timing was being ushered into the sport. In the Atlanta Olympics of 1996, Donovan Bailey (100m) and Michael Johnson (200m) set records within three days of each other.
But even for a non-Olympic year, the timing of the recent feats by Greene, Dvorak and El Guerrouj isn't anything extraordinary. As recently as two years ago, four records were set in 72 hours -- the 800m, 5,000m, 10,000m and the 3,000m steeplechase -- in a meet in Cologne, Germany. Only one of those records (Wilson Kipketer's 800m mark) still stands. Haile Gebrselassie of Ethopia broke both the 5,000m and 10,000m records in a 12-day span last year. And in 1992, five records -- the pole vault, 1,500m, 3,000m, 3,000m steeplechase and the decathlon -- were eclipsed in a three-week span. The decathlon was the last of those records to fall, when Dvorak shattered Dan O'Brien's seven-year-old mark last week.
The mile and the decathlon had been two of the tougher men's records to break in the '90s. Each was topped for only the second time this decade. In fact, only six men's individual records have not been broken in the '90s -- the 400m, 1,000m, 25,000m, 30,000m, hammer throw and discus. Toshihiko Seko holds both the 25,000m and 30,000m marks, which are the oldest active men's individual records. Fittingly, he set the records on the same day in 1981.
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