Mon 17 Apr 2006
Rorke, Austin elite athletes at the international level
Posted by admin under Athletics
Posted at 2:38 pmToday is Boston Marathon day, and Michelle Rorke ‘06 placed 17th. Not 17th among college students, not 17th among non-professional runners, but the 17th female overall, in a race against the best elite and professional marathoners in the world. Last year she was the 18th female, and this year she improved her time by seven minutes, from 2:50:10 to 2:43:08 (6:30 to 6:14 per mile pace). (Search for bib F32 here for her splits.)
Dan Austin ‘06 competed in the discus this past week at a highly competitive meet in California (briefly noted here). The competitors included four Olympians, with most of the top American and international discus throwers participating in the competition. Austin threw the discus 194 feet to place sixth out of nine, meaning that he beat three of the best discus throwers in the world. For a bit of perspective, Williams track coach Ralph White says this is equivalent to a male running a 3:53 mile.
April 17th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
Additionally, Marzuki Stevens ‘96 finished 20th overall in 2:20 which is 5:21/mile and is an Olympic Trials qualifying time; Shad Miller ‘00 was 45th in 2:30:01, just missing his second consecutive sub-2:30 marathon; and Shamus Brady ‘04 finished in 2:42:16. Pretty good efforts for some recent alums who have kept up some serious training after college.
April 17th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Khari Stephenson ‘04 played for the Jamaican national football team against the United States last week in a World Cup qualifier.
April 17th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
It was not a world cup qualifier, it was a friendly for the USA in preparation for the 2006 World Cup. Jamaica is not going to the World Cup, but Khari figures to be in Jamaica’s plans for the 2010 World Cup.
April 18th, 2006 at 9:32 am
“For a bit of perspective, Williams track coach Ralph White says this is equivalent to a male running a 3:53 mile.”
Heh. I’d say it’s like a farmer plowing 10 fields in a day, but that would be silly.
April 18th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Unless you don’t believe in the Decathalon, it isn’t silly at all. A 3:53 mile converts to about a 3:38 1500meters. That is worth 1132 in the Dec. A toss of 194 feet is about 59.2 meters or 1064. Pretty close actually.
April 18th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
I believe in the decathalon … heck, more than the next guy. It’s still silly, or rather, it doesn’t seem to me to provide any needed perspective. A throw like that stands on its own merits.
April 18th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
The belief that things stand on their own merit is an invitation to jargon abuse and bad writing. The more specialized the field, the more important it is to connect theorem and result to widely understood events.
In the world of track and field, the most well-known mark is the 4-minute mile. Is a long jump of 26 feet good? How about a 3 meter high jump or an 8 meter pole vault? What about 1:48 in the 800m? Forget about the shot-put marks.
But the 4 minute mile means something. Even people generally ignorant of the sport can remember running the hated mile in gym class every year.
April 19th, 2006 at 10:02 am
Ah, yes, the highly specialized and extremely confusing field of discus throwing, which hasn’t changed more than an eyelash in the past, say, 2,500 years. The discus, though, is certainly flying quite a bit more distance that it did circa Homer. So, yes, by all means, let’s contextualize a throw such as Dan’s. Let’s have the throws from the last few NCAA championships, the results from the US nationals, the results from the last world championships, the results from the last Olympics. The records, certainly.
But calling one thing something else doesn’t make it so. Bob Beamon’s long jump record was pretty well known at one point. So was Roger Maris’ home run record in a season. But in what meaningful sense is Austin’s throw like jumping 25 feet or hitting 54 home runs? Does it tell me anything about what he’s done? There’s lots of achievements that could be considered “of national caliber, bordering on world class,” in any number of disciplines, athletic or otherwise. I interviewed a table tennis player named Barney Reed a couple of months ago for an article that never ran. He was on the U.S. national team at the time, ranked in the top 40 in the world (see this — http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9443-2004Mar19?language=printer — for a good read). Is Dan Austin like that?
Again, I think context is good. But I also think dragging everything down to the lowest common denominator is an invitation to inanity. My favorite example from recent memory is Joe Buck, the baseball play-by-play announcer on Fox, telling his audience quite gravely during a pause in the action that Kyle Farnsworth’s 100 mph fastball was like Peyton Manning throwing a football 55 miles per hour. I’m pretty sure they even had a graphic. And if the response range to a statement can be captured by the distance between “sort of” and “not really,” maybe it’s not all that necessary in the first place.
April 19th, 2006 at 10:15 am
By the way, the Record reports today (not online yet) that Michelle Rorke was the third American woman at Boston, and that she not only qualified for the Olympic trials but that she will actually compete in them.
The world record in the discus throw is just over 74 meters, according to Wikipedia.
April 19th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
No, Roger Maris’ home run record is still well known.
But you are dead wrong about analogy being an invitation to inanity. Joe Buck is about the worst baseball announcer going, and only has his job because of his father’s fame. Clearly, he has the analogy backwards. You compare a Peyton Manning throw of 55mph to a 100mph fastball, not the other way round since 100mph is a more widely recognized number.
Compare Dan’s throw to the world record of about 240′. Is being 50 feet short of a world record good? A throw that is 80% of the way to best in the world, is that good? Obviously, if you’ve seen a discus competition, it is outrageously good, but if you haven’t, a comparison to the 4 minute mile is a great reference point. People get that breaking the 4 minute barrier was a big deal, and still is.
April 19th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
And you are wrong about the discus not changing in the last 2500 years. Since 1924, the world record has gone from 47.6meters to 74.1, an increase of 55%. In comparison, the 1500m time has fallen from 3:53 by Paavo Nurmi to 3:26, a 12% decrease.