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Webb, top vaulter set for Reebok Boston Indoor Games
American miler Alan Webb and Australian Steve Hooker, the #1 pole vaulter in the world, are coming to the Reebok Boston Indoor Games on January 27, organizers announced Tuesday. Both will be competing at the event for the first time.
Webb, who will turn 24 on Jan. 13, set the American record for 2 Miles (8:11.48) in 2005 and is a two-time U.S. outdoor champion at 1,500 meters. He became a national celebrity in 2001 when he broke both the indoor and outdoor national high-school mile records, the latter held by the legendary Jim Ryun for 36 years. He is a 2004 Olympian at 1,500 meters and last spring ran the fastest 10,000-meter debut ever by an American (27:34.72). Among those he will face in the Mile at the Reebok Boston Indoor Games is Chris Lukezic, the reigning U.S. 1,500-meter champion indoors.
Ranked #1 in the world by both Track & Field News and the International Association of Athletic Federations, the 24-year-old Hooker had two of the top four vaults in the world for 2006 at 5.96 meters/19 feet 6.5 inches and 5.91 meters/19 feet 4.75 inches. Also a 2004 Olympian, the colorful Aussie made his biggest splash by winning gold medals in 2006 at both the Commonwealth Games and IAAF World Cup.
Webb and Hooker join Tirunesh Dibaba, the Ethiopian superstar who broke the World Record for 5,000 meters indoors here in 2005. Ranked #1 in the world for 2006 by Track & Field News at 5,000 meters, she will again tackle that distance in Boston.
Since the Reebok Boston Indoor Games began in 1996, a total of 90 Olympic and World Championship medalists have competed in the event, which has also played host to four World Records and eight American Records. In addition, last year's meet featured the deepest men's indoor mile field ever assembled, shattering the previous mark (eight) with 11 athletes breaking the 4-minute barrier.
The 12th-annual Reebok Boston Indoor Games, the first stop in USA Track & Field's Visa Championship Series, will be held at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center at Roxbury Community College, 1350 Tremont St., beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 27. Information and tickets, at $60, $40 and $20, are now available on-line at www.BostonIndoorGames.com or by calling 1-877-TIX-TRAC. The Visa Championship Series returns to the Reggie Lewis Center Feb. 24-25 for the AT&T USA Indoor Track & Field Championships.
Longtime Seton Hall coach Gibson dies
World record-setting 400-meter hurdler and former Seton Hall track coach Johnny Gibson died Friday in Newton, N.J. He was 101.
Gibson set the world record of 52.6 seconds for the 400-meter hurdles on July 2, 1927, at the national championships in Lincoln, Neb. He turned 22 the next day, and had recently received a business administration degree from Fordham, where he took night classes.
He worked days running messages on Wall Street, actually running from building to building, according to The New York Times, which interviewed Gibson several times in his later years. His training included hurdling park benches.
Gibson qualified for the 1928 Olympic Team but failed to make the final in the 400m hurdles at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam.
After coaching Fordham's freshman team in the mid-1930s, Gibson coached Seton Hall's track team from 1946 to 1972. His athletes included sprinter Andy Stanfield, who won two gold medals (200m, 4x100m relay) at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, Finland, and a silver medal at the 1956 Games in Melbourne, Australia. A former 200-meter world record holder, Stanfield was inducted into the National Track & Field Hall of Fame in 1977.
In 2002, The Times asked Gibson how track athletes had changed through the years, he said: "It's still the same, but the good ones are in it because they respect the game. If you're a track man, you're a good man."
He is survived by two sons, John Jr. of Franklin, N.J., and Thomas of West Orange, N.J.; three daughters, D. Patricia Carter of Bloomfield, N.J.; Katharine Lipinski of Surf City, N.J., and Mary Donegan of Ogdensburg, N.J.; a sister, Helen Ryan of Wayne, N.J.; 19 grandchildren and 46 great-grandchildren and 5 great-great-grandchildren, the youngest a girl born last Wednesday.
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