Olympic Scene
By Helene Elliott
 

    Blasts from the past: Bill Rodgers and Joan Benoit Samuelson have entered the USA Track and Field Masters Indoor championships next weekend in Boston. Rodgers, a four-time winner of both the Boston and New York City marathons, is 55. Samuelson, the U.S. women's marathon record holder and the first women's Olympic marathon champion, is 45. Both will run the 3,000 meters. Also competing at the meet are Willie Gault, 42, in the 60-meter dash, 60-meter hurdles and 200 meters, and former NFL player Billy "White Shoes" Johnson, 51, in the 60-meter dash and long jump.

Rodgers, Benoit to Run in Masters
Page D12, The Boston Globe, 3/14/2003
By Reid Laymance, Globe Staff

      Bill Rodgers and Joan Benoit Samuelson, two former Boston Marathon champs, are running in Boston again, only this time they will be competing in the US Track and Field Masters Indoor Championships.

      The two are part of a field that will be officially unveiled today for the three-day meet (March 28-30) at the Reggie Lewis Center.

      Rodgers, 55, and Samuelson, 45, will compete in the 3,000 meters, which will be held March 28. This is the first time that either has competed in the national masters event.

        Rodgers won his first Boston in 1975 in a then-record time of 2 hours 9 minutes 55 seconds. He won three in a row from 1978-80, lowering the record to 2:09:27 in 1979. That record stood for two years.

       Samuelson won her first Boston title in 1979 and repeated in 1983. Her 1983 time of 2:22:43 was the record for 11 years. She won the first Olympic marathon in 1984 in Los Angeles.

      Willie Gault, the former NFL star and hurdles champion, will be in the field and compete in the 60-meter dash and 200-meter dash. Locally, Essex's Roger Pierce, the defending world champion in the 55-year-old 400 meters, will compete.

      The National Masters meet draws a field of nearly 1,000 who compete in age-group competition from 30s to 80s.

SPORTS IN BRIEF
Saturday, March 15, 2003

    Four-time Boston Marathon champion Bill Rodgers will be one of many track legends competing at U.S.A. Track & Field Master Indoor Championships at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center in Boston from March 28-30.

SPORTS
Sunday, March 16, 2003

Ageless Wonders
By Steve Nearman

        Masters track will get an extra boost from three world-class athletes who have entered the USATF National Masters Indoors Championships in Boston from March 28 to 30.

    Marathon great Bill Rodgers, 55, is entered in the M55 3,000-meter run, and Joan Samuelson may compete in the W45 3,000-meter run.

    "I haven't been on a track since the mid-'80s," said Samuelson, still sore from her workout the day before. "Probably I'll do it. Who's running in the W45? There's got to be some good competition there. What's the record? It won't be pretty, and it won't be fast."

    Fast? Leave that to former NFL player and Tennessee football/track star Willie Gault, who at 42 should dominate the 60 meters, 60 hurdles and 200 meters.