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DyeStat Michigan
Ritzenhein runs 8:47.3
3200 as one-man relay!
MT. PLEASANT MI 1/29/01 -- Rockford MI sr Dathan Ritzenhein showed up at Central Michigan University Monday night prepared to run a fast 3200. But there was no 3200 race scheduled, and MITS meet managers let Ritz run by himself in the 4x800 relay. So, the 2-time 2-mile and cross country national champion won the "race" in 8:47.3, which would be a Michigan state record and the 7th fastest ever by a US high schooler if accepted by the record keepers.
Jeff Hollobaugh, a respected track writer and Michigan HS track webmaster, called it "one of the wierdest cases I've come across in all the years I've kept statistics." Here is Jeff's report on the strange evening.
Here's what they did...if I have this right, apparently Ritzenhein won the relay race outright. He lapped the relay field twice. Final results: Ritz 8:47.3, Brian Smith 9:35.1, and the first relay team 9:55.
Here are his splits (all official):
33.3,
32.0, 65.3
31.7, 1:37.0
32.3, 2:09.3
32.2, 2:41.4
32.2, 3:13.6
32.2, 3:45.8
32.8, 4:18.6 1600m
32.7, 4:51.3
32.8, 5:24.1 2000m
33.5, 5:57.6
33.8, 6:31.4
33.5, 7:04.9
34.0, 7:38.9
34.2, 8:13.1 3000m
34.2, 8:47.3
He ran the rest of the meet as a workout: 4:27.5, 2:01r, and a missed 400 split.
Normally, I don't hesitate to call something a state record if it is legitimate. But this is one of the weirdest cases I've come across in all the years I've kept statistics. Usually, an individual time would not count in a situation like this because of the pacing help. But Ritzenhein won, and clearly didn't get any advantage from running against a few slow half-milers.
So I'm torn, and have called on the national prep experts from Track & Field News to help come to a ruling on this. It may just have to go into the exhibition category, and that would be a shame.
His 3000 and 3200 times would be state records by significant margins. The 3000 time is the third-fastest ever run in US history, and the 3200 is the seventh-fastest ever run.
--Jeff Hollobaugh
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