As you know, we give out 4 awards annually specific to throws. The Lad Pataki Award for Lifetime Achievement as a Masters Thrower has been awarded since 2007. Lad was indeed a great athlete.
The Throws committee discussed changing the name of the award based on the limited time that Lad actually competed as a master and his relatively small impact across masters throws. After several nominations and discussions, we are pleased to announce that we are renaming the award to “The Carol Finsrud Award for Lifetime Achievement as a Masters Thrower”.
Why Carol? Carol’s achievements and longevity in the US and Worldwide formed the basis for her recognition for this naming honor. She was the first recipient of the award in 2007. Since 1995, Carol has won the W Discus in every WAVA/WMA Outdoor Worlds except Perth, where she took 3rd. She has won the Throws Pentathlon 7 times out of 9, and placed or won Shot, Hammer, and Weight multiple times. Carol officially held W35, W40, W45, W50, W55 and W60 USATF discus records at the same time – 6 age groups! By shear numbers, she has set about 8 WMA records: 3 Discus; 5 Weight Pent.; 51 USATF records: 18 Discus; 6 Shot; 5 Superweight; 4 Ultra; 7 Weight; 8 Weight Pent. Her medal count includes 29 WMA Gold, 13 WMA Silver, 9 WMA Bronze and 112 USATF MTF Gold. So please join us in congratulating Carol on this honor.”
