The Track in the Forest by Bob Burns

Author:Bob Burns
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2018-03-07T16:00:00+00:00

12

Take Your Marks

When the starter’s pistol finally echoed through the trees in earnest, the final trials didn’t exactly roar out of the blocks. The first two days—September 6 and 7—consisted of just one final, the decathlon, followed by an off day. These US track and field trials would be unlike previous versions in profound ways, from the elongated competition schedule to the forested site and spartan spectator accommodations.

It would be “a casual atmosphere, a family-type setup, noncommercial,” as South Lake Tahoe publicist Harry Matte put it.

Spectators took shuttle buses up Meyers Grade to the track. Seating in the wooden bleachers was limited to about twenty-five hundred, though organizers said the site could handle up to fifteen thousand if the overflow took advantage of the hillside. An elevated platform built to hold the Longines timing system towered above the finish line. A rudimentary press box accommodated about one hundred members of the Fourth Estate. The reddish Tartan track was six lanes on the curves, eight lanes on the straights. Daily tickets were priced at two dollars for general admission, four dollars for reserved seating.

To duplicate the Olympic format, Bowerman and the USOC track committee stretched the schedule to ten days of competition over an eleven-day span. (Previous US trials were over and done with in two days.) Each of the nineteen events at Echo Summit followed the same qualifying guidelines as Mexico City, even though the number of entrants was much smaller—seven to twelve competitors per event. This proved to be overkill: in the first of four rounds in the 400 meters, for instance, nobody was eliminated.

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