by Richard Benyo
August 1
Fitness: THE ‘ANYBODY CAN PLAY’ WORLD CORPORATE GAMES
Athletes who range from world-class to neighborhood class will compete in San Francisco this fall in the first World Corporate Games, giving them a chance to show their stuff beyond the board rooms.
You’ve heard of corporate sports events before. But this one is a big deal: some 20 events from October 22 to November 5.
The Bay Area already has the well-established Manufacturers’ Hanover Corporate Challenge road race series, which is more than a decade old. And during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Runner’s World Magazine sponsored the Corporate Cup competitions, usually based on The Peninsula.
The major differences between the World Corporate Games and what has gone before is the diversity and sheer number of sports—not just running. And in the WCG participants need not be full-time employees of a corporation to take part.
“It would be almost impossible in an event this large to successfully monitor ringers,” said Ken O’Bryan, one of the coordinators of the event. “And besides, we wanted to have these Games more open, more a celebration of corporate sports.”
O’Bryan was speaking from his temporary offices on the eighth floor of the Shaklee Terraces building at 444 Market Street. Shaklee has donated the office space as part of its commitment to the concept. As the Games draw near, Shaklee and Merrill-Lynch will donate additional office space to accommodate the hundreds of volunteers.
In the open spirit of the Games, Shaklee has paid the entry fees for Bay Area blind athlete Harry Cordellos, who will compete in a Shaklee singlet.
O’Bryan expects about 10,000 athletes to take part in the Games, and estimates they will bring as much as $35 million worth of business to the city.
Three months before the Games open, athletes from 1,000 companies had signed up. Twenty-three nations were represented, including a team of 16 from an industrial league in the Soviet Union.
Not only are the Games more open than other corporate events, the competition itself is unique. Rather than divide teams into classifications according to the size of the company, teams are divided into classes according to the number of entries they have in the competition.
That would allow a ma-and-pa competition of five people to take on a major corporation like IBM, if IBM were to send a team of five. And the scoring works against major corporations entering a small team composed of ringers, because although first place receives 50 points, second place receives 49, third receives 48. That effectively undermines hiring ex-Olympians just for this event.
The 20 events are as follows: athletics (track & road racing), basketball, tenpin bowling, canoeing, cycling, diving, golf, powerlifting, racquetball, sailing, soccer, softball, squash, surfing, swimming, table tennis, triathlon, volleyball, and weightlifting.
Because of space limitations, the events will be filled on a first-come first-served basis. The most popular events are triathlon, the Golden Gate swim, cycling, track, and swimming, in that order.
The entry fee for each participant is $150. Once entered, however, an athlete can sign up for an unlimited number of events in any combination of events.
Deadline for entry is September 15. The sponsors hope to hold the World Corporate Games every two years. For more information, either to participate or to volunteer for organizing, call 415-781-1988.
August 15, 1988
Running Roundup: RUNNERS GREET HOT WEATHER WITH FAST TIMES
July was hot this year—and so was the competition in four favorite summer races.
Despite their hilly configurations, the dual Black Diamond Mines runs in Antioch enjoyed good turnouts. Chad Marquardt of Antioch won the 9.1-mile edition in 1:10:57; women’s winner was Nancy DeMattei of San Jose, who trned in a time of 1:24:45. Men’s masters winner was Don Bryan of Stockton, who ran 1:22:05 and placed sixth overall; female masters winner was Eldrith Gosney of Vallejo with a 1:37:40.
In the 8.5-mile race, Jeremy Seven of Clayton won in 56:46; women’s winner was Maggie Fillmore of Oakland. In the masters division James Hatfield III of Los Gatos won the men’s masters division in 1:06:41 and placed third overall. Women’s masters winner was Patricia Welington of San Francisco with a 1:29:32.
At the 11th annual Great Calistoga Footrace 8K, Scott Leonard of Santa Rosa won with a 25:44. In the women’s division, Jeanise Eiseman of Calistoga won in 32:25. Masters winners were Ron Smith of Geyserville, who took second overall with a 26:37, and Barbara Robben of Berkeley, who turned in a 38:07.
At the Brannan Island Triathlon half-mile swim, 5K run, 12-mile bike ride, Rick Shand of Walnut Creek won in 1:10:29. Women’s winner was Claire McCarty of South Lake Tahoe in 1:22:37.
In the Benicia Swamp Run’n’Stride 5-Miler, John Hancock of Stockton won with a 29:05, while Susan Lancaster of Vallejo won the women’s race in 37:56.
The remainder of August and early September features some of the most competitive running and triathlon events in the Bay Area.
The most demanding triathlon in the area, the Alcatraz Challenge, is scheduled for this Saturday. It includes a swim from Alcatraz to Aquatic Park, a one-mile run from the fishing pier to the bike racks, a 20-mile bicycle ride to Mill Valley, followed by another run on the Double Dipsea route. The fun starts at 7:30 a.m.
The Challenge is one of those rare triathlons that spectators can also enjoy. Prime viewing sites are Aquatic Park and Old Mill Park in Mill Valley. For entry information call Sally Bailey at 415-376-3468.
The Presidio 10, one of San Francisco’s premier running events, is scheduled for Sunday. The 10-miler begins at 9 a.m. at the Presidio Parade Grounds. The course includes runs on both sides of the Golden Gate Bridge, before finishing at the Parade Ground. Information: 415-781-6785.
On August 28, there’s the scenic Bodega Bay to Breakers 8K. The course is flat and fast, and the race begins at 9 a.m. Contact Julie Shoffner at 707-875-2211.
A make-or-break race this month is the San Francisco Distance Classic half-marathon on August 28. The race begins at 8 a.m. at the San Francisco Zoo. For entry information, call 415-681-2323; to volunteer to help put on the race, call 415-681-2322.
With the way the long, hot summer has gone, inland at least, champagne grapes in Napa and Sonoma counties were harvested the first week of August. Considering the hotter climate in Livermore, the fourth annual Wente Cellar to Cellar 10K on September 4 (9 a.m.) may end up being run through vineyards already free of grapes.
The race also is held in conjunction with the Livermore Valley Harvest Festival. Runners receive a T-shirt, champagne glass, refreshments, wine tasting, entertainment and more. Call 415-447-3023.
And if you’re really into racking up mileage, the annual Pepsi to Reno 72-miler is scheduled for 6 a.m. on September 9. One lap around Lake Tahoe. That’s clear the lungs. Contact 702-329-6697.
And last but far from least, on the triathlon calendar we have the September 17 Coors Bass Lake Classic (1500-meter, swim, 40K bike ride, 10K run). The Bass Lake event is a classic way to wind down the season. Contact 209-642-3676.
August 22, 1988: A MACHINE THAT’S A STEP AHEAD OF FOOT INJURIES
A state -of-the-art machine that measures and analyzes human gait in a matter of minutes was introduced recently at the American Podiatric Medical Association Convention in Anaheim.
Developed by the Santa Rosa high-tech company Motion Analysis in conjunction with sports medicine podiatrist John Hollander, the machine, known as FootTrak, promises to eliminate a great deal of the diagnostic guesswork faced by the fitness walker, jogger, or runner who is plagued with lower extremity injuries.
“In the past, analyzing gain problems by medical professionals was an art,” Hollander said. “Unfortunately, only a very few professionals were intrinsically artists. With the FootTrak, medical professionals are able to measure a foot or gait problem by science.”
What the $35,000 computer system does is both simple and complex. A patient has two retro-reflective discs placed on the back of each lower leg. Inside the shoe goes a triggering plate to indicate impact and toe-off.
When the patient walks or runs on a treadmill, a nearby lightbar receives impulses from the triggering plate, and a video camera records the motion of the discs. All the information is fed into a computer that isolates each leg and delivers in minutes results that used to take a week to calculate.
The benefits of a high-tech tool such as FootTrak are obvious. In the past, podiatrists and orthopedic surgeons depended on the human eye to prescribe strengthening exercises, improved biomechanic styles, orthotic devices, or different shoes based on types of injuries or gait characteristics. The FootTrak system makes hundreds of objective impressions per second, runs them through a computer, and spits out a coldly clinical estimate of which biomechanical factors are working.
Hollander sees the machine as a boon to his profession. “There was a tendency in the past to over-prescribe for foot and leg problems in an attempt to help the patient,” he said. “Sometimes this over-prescription would take the form of orthotic devices or surgery, when perhaps a more conservative treatment would have worked.
“The FootTrak is so precise that a runner could bring in a half-dozen different running shoes and in a half-hour we could tell him which shoe best addresses his unique biomechanical needs and which shoe does not.”
Ultimately, besides placing the FootTrak system in podiatrists’ offices, Hollander and Motion Analysis hope to develop a simpler and less expensive version that fitness show stores could use to match more precisely the correct shoe to each customer’s foot.
During the next several weeks, FootTrak will be tested in a number of hospitals throughout the United States in order to wring out the last of the computer gremlins.