Week in Review: Ethiopian dominance
Mengesha, Ketema win men's and women's titles in Berlin Marathon
The impressive depth of Ethiopia’s marathoners was on full display in the 50th edition of the Berlin Marathon on Sunday when runners from that country won both the men’s and women’s races and accounted for five of the six podium finishers.
Furthermore, Ethiopians swept the top four places in the women’s contest while accounting for four of the top seven finishers in the men’s event. And all of that was accomplished without the services of any of the runners who had represented the country in the Olympic Games in Paris.
With the Olympic marathons having been contested on August 10 for men and August 11 for women, there had not been enough recovery time for it to be feasible for any of Ethiopia’s Olympic team runners to perform well in Berlin.
Nonetheless, 24-year-old Milkesa Mengesha won the men’s race in a personal of 2 hours 3 minutes 17 seconds and 28-year-old Tigist Ketema placed first in the women’s race in 2:16:42.
Mengesha’s time moved him to 19th on the men’s all-time performer list and Ketema’s performance was the 20th fastest ever by a woman.
Mengesha’s victory came in the fifth marathon of his career. He had clocked personal bests of 12:58.28 in the 5,000 meters in 2021 and 27:00.24 in the 10,000 in 2022, before he ran 2:05:29 to finish seventh in his debut marathon in Valencia, Spain, in December of that year.
He followed that performance with a 2:06:49 victory in the Daegu Marathon in South Korea in April of last year before finishing sixth in 2:10:43 — while running in hot and humid conditions — in last year’s World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
He was also in third place after the first 35 kilometers of the London Marathon in April, but did not finish the race.
In Berlin, he was among a 12-runner lead pack that followed pacesetters through 10 kilometers in 28:42, 20 kilometers in 57:44, and the halfway mark in 60:57.
The trio of pacesetters had dropped out of the race when Mengesha and Kibiwott Kandie of Kenya led a group of 11 runners through 25 kilometers in 1:12:30.
Kandie, the second-fastest half marathon runner in history at 57:32, then led three fellow Kenyans and four Ethiopians, including Mengesha, through 30 kilometers in 1:27:21.
Although the pace slowed to 14:53 for the next five kilometers, the lead pack was down to seven when Ethiopian Tadese Takele, who had run 2:03:24 in finishing third in Berlin last year, led a tightly-bunched group through 35 kilometers in 1:42:14.
The pack was down to five runners a little past 36 kilometers and it had been reduced to four approaching 38 kilometers when Takele began to fall back of Mengesha, compatriot Haymanot Alew, and Kenyans Cybrian Kotut and Stephen Kiprop.
Mengesha, Kotut, and Kiprop were about 10 meters ahead of Alew when they went through 40 kilometers in 1:56:59, but the race for first was down to Kotut and Mengesha two minutes later.
Mengesha was running just off of Kotut’s left shoulder at that point in the race, but he began to draw away from the Kenyan 41.5 kilometers into the contest and he had a lead of three seconds when he passed through the Brandenburg Gate with less than 400 meters remaining.
Looking strong, he gave a thumbs up to the crowd before crossing the finish line five seconds ahead of Kotut, who ran 2:03:22. An ecstatic Alew placed third in 2:03:31 and he was followed by Kiprop in 2:03:37, Hailemariyam Kiros of Ethiopia in 2:04:35, and Yohei Ikeda of Japan in 2:05:12.
A weary-looking Takele finished seventh in 2:05:13, followed by Oqbe Kibrom Ruesom of Eritrea in 2:05:37.
While Kotut bettered his previous best by 72 seconds and Alew slashed nearly two minutes off his, Kiprop crushed his career best of 2:07:04 that he had set in winning the Daegu Marathon in April.
In an interview through an interpreter Mengesha said he had “been training very hard for this course. He knows it is very flat and he can run very fast times. But he was at the London Marathon prior to that and he had to stop… because he had some issues and that’s why he was very worried about that. But at the end his preparations were well, he did it, and he’s very capable of running much faster.”
The interpreter added that Mengesha was “very, very happy. He had the chance to get in the Chicago Marathon. He was supposed to run there, but he knew the course is flat, the weather is nice, so he was really into Berlin, and at the end, he did it. So he is very happy.”
In contrast to Mengesha’s victory in a tight men’s race, Ketema was a runaway winner in the women’s contest as she had broken away from her closest pursuer before the halfway point.
It was her second victory in three career marathons as she had placed seventh in London in April in 2:23:21 after running a winning 2:16:07 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in January. That was the fastest-ever debut by a woman in the marathon.
Ketema and Azmera Gebru were 29 seconds ahead of compatriot Genzebe Dibaba when they came through five kilometers in 16:06 in Berlin and that duo was 47 seconds ahead of a 10-runner chase pack — that included Dibaba — when they passed 10 kilometers in 32:14.
Ketema was a second ahead of Gebru when she came through 15 kilometers in 48:16 and she was two seconds up at 20 kilometers in 1:04:23. But her lead was 12 seconds when she passed the halfway point in 1:07:53 and it had grown to 63 seconds when she came through 25 kilometers in 1:21:44.
Ketema’s advantage was nearly two minutes over second-place Bosena Mulatie of Ethiopia when she passed 30 kilometers in 1:36:59 and she was two minutes and four seconds ahead of Mulatie and fellow Ethiopian Mestawot Fikir when she came through 35 kilometers in 1:53:13.
Her lead had grown to 2 minutes and 20 seconds over second-place Fikir when she hit 40 kilometers in 2:09:24 and her final time of 2:16:42 left her well in front of Fikir at 2:18:48 and Mulatie at 2:19:00.
Aberu Ayana Mulisa gave Ethiopia a sweep of the top four places when she finished fourth in 2:20:20 and she was followed by the Japanese duo of Ai Hosoda in 2:20:31 and Mizuki Matsuda in 2:20:42.
Calli Hauger-Thackery of Great Britain and Yebregual Melese of Ethiopia rounded out the top eight finishers with times of 2:21:24 and 2:21:39.
Gebru and Dibaba, the former world record-holder in the 1,500 meters at 3:50.07 and the gold medalist in the 2015 World Championships, did not finish.
Fikir, Mulatie, Mulisa, Hosoda, Matsuda, and Hauger-Thackery all recorded personal bests, with Mulatie slashing nearly eight minutes off her previous best of 2:26:59 that she had run in finishing sixth in her marathon debut in Houston in January.
“She is very grateful that she was able to run here, that she’s in Berlin,” Ketema said through the interpreter when she was asked about her victory. “She’s very happy, and with the help of God, she’s able to win this race. And she has been working hard with her trainer. So she wants to thank her trainer, very, very, much. Many thanks to her trainer.”
The Berlin Marathon was the fourth of six World Marathon Majors races to be held this year.
The final two World Marathon Majors will be the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 13 and the New York City Marathon on Nov. 3.
Struggles continue: The marathon career of Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba continued to sputter in the Berlin Marathon as she dropped out of the race.
The 33-year-old runner had clocked 2:18:05 to finish second in her marathon debut in Amsterdam in 2022, but in her three marathons since then, she did not finish the London Marathon in April of last year, finished sixth in 2:21:47 in the Chicago Marathon last October, and dropped out of the Berlin Marathon on Sunday.
She was in ninth place — as part of the chase pack — after the first 15 kilometers in Berlin, but she later pulled out of the contest.
Dibaba had a superb track career that saw her set world records of 3:50.07 in the 1,500 meters outdoors in 2015 after lowering the indoor mark to 3:55.17 in 2014.
She won the 1,500 and placed third in the 5,000 in the 2015 World Athletics Championships in Moscow and won a combined five gold medals at 1,500 and 3,000 meters in the World Athletics Indoor Championships in 2012, ’14, ’16, and ’18.
In addition, she holds world records indoors in the mile (4:13.31), 3,000 (8:16.60), and 5,000 (14:18.86), and world bests indoors in the 2,000 (5:23.75) and two mile (9:00.48).
The biggest winner: In an inaugural meet that was designed to celebrate the talents and appeal of women track athletes in a festive, party-like atmosphere, Brittany Brown of the U.S. capped the best season of her career by winning $85,000 in prize money in the Athlos NYC competition at Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island on Sept. 26 (Thursday).
The 29-year-old sprinter concluded the meet by coming from behind to defeat Olympic gold medalist Gabby Thomas in the 200 meters after finishing second in the 100 in the competition.
The women’s-only meet, which received much of its financial backing from Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, consisted of six-runner fields in the 100, 100 hurdles, 200, 400, 800, and 1,500 and included a prize money structure in which the winner of each race was awarded $60,000, with the second-place finisher getting $25,000, followed by $10,000 for third place, $8,000 for fourth, $5,000 for fifth, and $2,500 for sixth.
In comparison, the top eight finishers in each of the 16 men’s events and 16 women’s events in the Diamond League Final in Brussels from Sept. 13-14 were awarded $30,000 for first place, followed by $12,000 for second, and $7,000 for third, with the remaining $11,000 going to the fourth- through eighth-place finishers.
“The first inaugural event for all women, I'm just really appreciative of everyone supporting us women,” Brown said on the broadcast as she stood on an infield stage after her victory in the 200. “I'm just happy to be a part of this.”
Competing before an appreciative crowd in a meet in which walk-out songs were provided for each athlete, Brown trailed Thomas and fellow American Anavia Battle coming off the turn in the 200. But she began to make up ground on both of them with about 75 meters left in the race as Thomas and Battle were focused on finishing in front of the other.
Brown caught Battle with about 25 meters to go and then overtook Thomas in the final 10 meters of the contest to record a time of 22.18 seconds to Thomas’ 22.21 and Battle’s 22.34.
Thomas, who is known for having a strong finish in the home straightaway of the 200, had run 21.81 to Brown’s personal best of 21.90 in winning the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Eugene, Oregon, in June and clocked 21.83 in winning the Olympic Games in Paris in August in a race in which Brown won the bronze medal with a time of 22.20.
While Thomas had followed her individual title by running the third legs on U.S. teams that won gold medals in the 4 x 100 relay and the 4 x 400 relay in Paris, Brown had won the 200 in an eased-up 22.00 in the Golden Gala Pietro Mennea Diamond League meet in Rome on August 30 before clocking 51.48 to finish second in a 400 in a meet in Brescia, Italy, on Sept. 8. She then won the 200 in 22.20 in the Diamond League Final at the Memorial van Damme meet in Brussels six days later.
Brown, who had finished seventh in the 100 in last year’s World Athletics Championships, ran even with Marie-Josee Ta Lou-Smith of Cote d’Ivoire for the first 75 meters of that race in New York City before Ta Lou-Smith pulled away to record a 10.98 to 11.05 victory over Brown.
Candace Hill of the U.S. placed third in 11.14, while Olympic fourth-place finisher Daryll Nieta of Great Britain was fourth in 11.29 after getting off to a dismal start and never recovering.
“I feel like this sport is really changing and growing,” Brown added during her post-race interview. “I’m excited to be a part of it. This is a whole new event. We tried something new. I'm happy to be a part of trying. I feel like so many people just sit and talk about, OK, let’s do this, let’s do this. But no one’s doing it. So I’m happy to be a part of people doing the work.”
In the four other events contested in the meet, Olympic champions Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic and Faith Kipyegon of Kenya capped unbeaten seasons in their specialties with wins in the 400 and 1,500 meters, respectively, while Olympic silver medalist Tsige Duguma of Ethiopia took the 800 and Olympic bronze medalist Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico placed first in the 100 hurdles.
Paulino clocked 49.59 in the 400, with Kipyegon running 4:04.79 in the 1,500, Duguma timing 1:57.43 in the 800, and Camacho-Quinn crossing the finish line in 12.36 in the 100 hurdles.
Questionable no-call: Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico posted her sixth consecutive victory when she won the women’s 100-meter hurdles in the Athlos NYC meet, but she had visibly flinched in the starting blocks after the field had been called to the set position.
In most circumstances such as that, the starter would have either disqualified Camacho-Quinn for a false start, or at the very least, instructed the competitors to come out of their set positions before trying to start the race again.
When no action was taken by the starter, Camacho-Quinn came out of the blocks well, established a clear lead after the fifth of 10 hurdles and crossed the finish line with a time of 12.36 seconds that left her well clear of the American duo of Alaysha Johnson in 12.43 and Olympic champion Masai Russell in 12.44.
The win gave Olympic bronze medalist Camacho-Quinn 13 wins in 17 finals this season and seven victories in eight races against Russell. However, the American asked her agent to file a protest with meet officials after the race.
“I want to protest because as anyone can see, there was a lot of flinching going on at the starting line, so that kind of affected me,” she said in a post-ace interview on citiusmag.com. “I was playing catchup the whole entire race.”
She added that with the amount of prize money in play, the “person who ran the legal race should get the prize money they deserve.”
When the protest went nowhere, Camacho-Quinn was credited with running 12.38 or faster for the sixth time in her last eight races, counting her semifinal performance in the Olympic Games.
She had run 12.35 twice, 12.36 three times, and 12.38 once during that stretch.
Something amiss?: An outdoor season that started so well for Gudaf Tsegay of Ethiopia came to a disappointing conclusion in the Athlos NYC meet when the two-time World champion finished fourth in the women’s 1,500 meters with a time of 4:06.81.
The 27-year-old Tsegay, who won the 5,000 in the 2022 World Athletics Championships and the 10,000 in last year’s global title meet, ended her 2023 season by lowering the world record in the 5,000 to 14:00.21 in the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon.
She ran 3:58.11 in the 1,500 and 8:17.11 in the 3,000 in winning her first two indoor races of this year before she was upset by Elle St. Pierre of the U.S. in the 3,000 — while running 8:21.13 — in the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, on March 2.
Undeterred, she ran 3:50.30, then the third-fastest time ever, to win the 1,500 in the Diamond League opener in Xiamen, China, on April 20.
She followed that with a 29:05.92 clocking in the 10,000, the third-fastest time in history, while finishing second behind Kenyan Beatrice Chebet and her world-record effort of 28:54.14 in the Prefontaine Classic on May 25.
However, she turned in subpar efforts — by her standards — during the remainder of the season.
An attempted triple in the Olympic Games saw her finish ninth in the 5,000 in 14:45.21 on August 5, sixth in the 10,000 in 30:45.21 four days later, and 12th in the 1,500 in 4:01.27 on the following day.
Then came last week’s meet in New York City when her vaunted kick was not evident during the last lap of a 1,500-meter race that was run at a very pedestrian pace for the first kilometer.
Picking up where he left off: Parker Wolfe of the University of North Carolina set a course record of 23:04.0 in winning the men’s title in the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational cross country meet in Madison, Wisconsin, last Friday.
Wolfe, a senior, won the NCAA title in the 5,000 meters on the track in early June before finishing third in the event in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials later in the month. But he did not get a chance to compete in the Olympic Games in Paris because his best time of 13:10.75 fell short of the automatic qualifying standard of 13:05.00 for that meet.
Defending NCAA cross country champion Graham Blanks of Harvard finished a place behind Wolfe in the Olympic Trials, but he ended up competing in the Games — and finishing ninth in the final — because he had bettered the qualifying standard when he ran 13:03.78 at the start of the indoor season last December.
Wolfe’s time in the Nuttycombe meet left him nearly three seconds ahead of sophomore Rocky Hansen of Wake Forest, who finished second in 23:06.9. He was followed by senior Liam Murphy of Villanova in 23:08.6, senior Casey Clinger of BYU in 23:10.4, and freshman Robin Kwemoi Bera of Iowa State in 23:18.2.
BYU, paced by Clinger, had four of the top nine finishers while rolling to a 44-108 victory over second-place Iowa State in the team standings. Wake Forest finished third with 127 points, followed by North Carolina with 225.
Competing in warm and dry conditions, Wolfe and Bera had been at the front of a 13-runner lead pack when they came through 4,000 meters in 11:28.0. But Bera had a four-second lead when he came through 5.2 kilometers and he was six and a half seconds ahead of Wolfe, Hansen, Clinger, and Murphy when he passed six kilometers in 17:11.3.
It looked as though he might run away with the victory at that point in the race. However, Wolfe and Co. had begun to reel him in by seven kilometers and they caught him 200 meters later.
Wolfe, who placed ninth in last year’s NCAA cross country title meet, and Hansen were battling for the lead when they crested a hill with about 700 meters left in the race, but Wolfe was 10 meters ahead of Hansen with 400 meters to go and he was never seriously challenged after that.
“I think there [was] a lot of uncertainty coming into this race of just where everyone was going to be,” Wolfe said in an interview that was part of the runnerspace.com livestream. “A lot of new transfers, a lot of international guys… We were just kind of feeling it out the first 5k, and that made it really, really hard. So it was a good race.”
Dominating win: The BYU men’s cross country team backed up its No. 2 national ranking with a runaway victory in the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational last Friday.
The Cougars, led by the fourth-place Casey Clinger, had four of the top nine finishers while rolling to a 48-120 victory over second-place and No. 5-ranked Iowa State.
Wake Forest, the No. 20-ranked team in the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association poll, placed third with 127 points, followed by No. 6 North Carolina with 225 and No. 21 Colorado with 257.
Clinger, who placed seventh in the 2022 NCAA championships before redshirting last season due to an injury, clocked 23:10.4 over the 8,000-meter layout in a race in which fellow senior Parker Wolfe of North Carolina set a course record of 23:04.0.
Joey Nokes finished sixth in 23:21.4 for BYU and fellow seniors Creed Thompson and Aidan Troutner finished eighth and ninth, respectively, with times of 23:28.4 and 23:29.6 for the Cougars.
Sophomore James Corrigan, a member of the U.S. Olympic team in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, placed finished 17th in 23:48.8 to round out the scoring for BYU and the Cougars also received a 21st-place effort from junior Jacob Stanford, who ran 23:54.7.
Stanford would have been the No. 3 runner or better on every other team in the race that consisted of 24 scoring squads.
Canuck 1-2 finish: Canadians Sadie Sigfstead of Villanova and Florence Caron of Penn State finished first and second in the women’s championship race of the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational.
Sigfstead clocked 19:55.7 over the 6,000-meter course that will serve as the women’s layout for the NCAA title meet on Nov. 23 and fellow junior Caron ran 20:03.2.
They were followed by the senior trio of Rosina Machu of Gonzaga (20:06.2), Phoebe Anderson of Columbia (22:11.4), and Kimberley May of Providence (20:12.4).
Washington, the No. 5-ranked team in the USTFCCCA poll, won the team title with a 110-139 victory over No. 14 Utah. Georgetown, the No. 15-ranked squad, finished third with 145 points, followed by No. 10 Providence with 180 and No. 19 Wisconsin with 182.
Juniors Maeve Stiles and Julia David-Smith paced the victorious Huskies by finishing eighth in 20:17.9 and 12th in 20:24.8, respectively.
Machu, who finished 16th in the NCAA championships last year, set the pace during much of the first part of the race and was two seconds ahead of second-place Sigfstead when she came through 2,000 meters in 6:26.2.
That duo was 10 seconds in front of third-place Caron when they passed 4,000 meters in 13:17.0. However, Sigfstead moved into the lead shortly after that and had a three-second lead over Machu 4.7 kilometers into the race and she was up by six seconds with a kilometer to go.
Although Caron was able to pass Machu during the final 500 meters of the race, she was unable to make much of a dent in the lead of Sigfstead, who placed fourth in the Big East Conference cross country meet last year and 12th in the 10,000 in the NCAA track and field championships in June.
Impressive victory: Brian Musau of Oklahoma State defeated Habtom Samuel of New Mexico for the individual men’s title in the Cowboy Jamboree at the Grenier Family OSU Cross Country Course in Stillwater, Oklahoma, last Saturday.
Musau, who placed eighth in last year’s NCAA title race, clocked 22:55.6 over the 8,000-meter course to finish eight seconds in front of fellow sophomore Samuel, the runner-up in the national title meet.
Defending NCAA champion and top-ranked Oklahoma State defeated No. 8 New Mexico, 19-45, for the team title, with No. 22 Oregon in third with 89 points and No. 24 Texas in fourth with 116.
The victorious Cowboys had five of the top six finishers in the race on their home course, with freshman Laban Kipkemboi finishing third in 23:19.0 and sophomore Denis Kipngetich placing fourth in 23:21.0.
Kipngetich placed fourth in the NCAA meet last year.
Oregon was led by redshirt freshman Simeon Birnbaum, who placed 14th in 24:10.9.
Birnbaum was selected as the national men’s prep athlete of 2023 by Track & Field News.
Mild upset: Freshman Pamela Kosgei of New Mexico was a runaway winner of the women’s race in the Cowboy Jamboree on Saturday.
Paced by Kosgei’s first-place performance in which she ran 19:50.0 over the 6,000-meter course, No. 21-ranked New Mexico defeated No. 16 Oklahoma State, 34-40, for the team title. Lamar placed third with 76 points, followed by the University of St. Mary (Kansas) with 158.
Junior Nia Clatworthy of Lamar placed second in 20:33.5 and freshman Victoria Lagat of Oklahoma State finished third in 20:37.2.
Natalie Bitetti of New Mexico finished fourth in 20:48.3 and fellow senior Klara Dess placed sixth in 20:56.8 for the victorious Lobos.
Prize money increase: The Diamond League announced on Sept. 18 that the prize money awarded to track and field competitors during the 2025 season would be the highest ever.
The announcement stated that the amount of prize money available to athletes in designated events in the 14 one-day Diamond League meets would range from $30,000 to $50,000 after being $25,000 this year.
For the two-day Diamond League Final, the Prize money amount for each event will range from $60,000 to $100,000. It was $60,000 per event for this year’s Diamond League Final that was held in the Memorial van Damme meet in Brussels from Sept. 13-14.
Although the announcement did not provide a specific breakdown for how the prize money would be awarded, the top three finishers in a one-day Diamond League meet this year earned $10,000 for first place, $6,000 for second, and $3,500 for third, with the remaining $5,500 going to the fourth- through eighth-place finishers.
In the Diamond League Final in Brussels from Sept. 13-14, the winner of in each of the 16 men’s events and 16 women’s events were awarded $30,000 for first place, followed by $12,000 for second, and $7,000 for third, with the remaining $11,000 going to the fourth- through eighth-place finishers.
Retirement news: Holly Bradshaw of Great Britain, the bronze medalist in the women’s pole vault in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021, announced late last month that she was retiring.
The 32-year-old Bradshaw was a member of four Olympic teams and five World championship squads. She also competed in the World Athletics Indoor Championships twice, earning a bronze medal in the 2012 meet in Istanbul.
Track & Field News ranked her among the top 10 vaulters in the world seven times during her career, with her top ranking at No. 3 for the 2021 season.
Her career best of 4.90 meters (16 feet 0¾ inches) ties her for 11th on the all-time performer list that combines the top performances made indoors and outdoors.
In a post on her Instagram account, Bradshaw noted that she had cleared 2.00 (6-6¾) in her first competition on May 5, 2007, and 4.20 (13-9¼) in her final meet on Sept. 21 of this year.
She ended her post by writing that “I love pole vaulting with all my heart and I will miss the feeling of flying off a pole so very much but it is time for me to start a new chapter! Whatever that may entail I know it will be equally as exciting as this chapter I am now closing ❤️”
In memory: George Rhoden of Jamaica, the Olympic champion in the men’s 400 meters in the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, died on August 24. He was 97.
Rhoden, who was born in Kingston but lived some of his life in the U.S., lowered the world record in the 400 to 45.8 seconds in 1950.
He edged compatriot Herb McKenley for the 1952 Olympic title when they were each credited with times of 45.9 after McKenley had run 46.4 to Rhoden’s 46.5 in the second of two semifinals earlier in the day.
McKenley and Rhoden later ran the third and fourth legs on a Jamaican foursome that won the 4 x 400 relay in a world record of 3:03.9 while finishing a tenth of a second ahead of a U.S. squad that was anchored by Mal Whitfield, who had won his second consecutive title in the 800 five days earlier.
McKenley was credited with a split of 44.6 — the fastest run ever at that time — on his leg and Rhoden had a split of 45.5, which was tied for the second fastest in the race along with Whitfield and fellow American Gerrard Cole.
Rhoden won a total of three NCAA titles while attending what is now Morgan State University in Baltimore and he was the top-ranked quarter-miler in the world by Track & Field News for the 1950, ‘51, and ‘52 seasons.