THE CONNING TOWER by Keith Conning: Gerry Lindgren 8:46.0

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Gerry Lindgren 8:46.0

Mike Fanelli with Gaston Roelants.

FIFTY THREE YEARS AGO TONIGHT (1/18/64) a 17 year old kid from Spokane became the first high schooler to break 9:00 for two miles...at this, the Los Angeles Invitational, he forced the early pace and even led through 1 mile at 4:21 with steeplechase world record holder, the great Gaston Roelants, hot on his heels...GL shortly thereafter started to fade. First the former USC stud, Julio Marin went by and then another grizzled vet named George Young did too...it looked like the... phenom might slip all the way back to DFL but he did not. With about 4 laps to go, a re-energized young Gerry Lindgren got his second wind and fought his way past Marin...with just more than lap to go he was really charging and caught and fought Young...he ripped through the final go around and finished up less than 40 yards behind the Belgian 8:41.2 to 8:46.0...8:46?? Well hell's bells, that crushed the old schoolboy mark set by Canadian whiz kid Bruce Kidd...amazing but true ;}
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Mike Fanelli there were extenuating circumstances Gerry Lindgren...and here is howSports Illustrated called it:
http://www.si.com/.../the-fastest-boy-in-the-west...

The fastest boy in the West challenges a champion

In Los Angeles they came to see Belgium's superb distance runner, Gaston Roelants. He won, all right, but it was a slim 17-year-old high school senior, Gerry Lindgren, who ran away with the applause

si.com|By Robert Creamer

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Rich Torrellas Gerry Lindgren was a GOD! I had the pleasure of seeing him run at the NCAA Cross Country Championships at Van Cortland Park in the Bronx against a young man from Oregon named Steve Prefontaine. Of course, it made it easy that I lived in NYC!

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