In search of lowering a record that is already 64 years old, Argentine athletics is preparing to experience a party at CeNARD

In homage to the great Argentine athletes Osvaldo Suarez Y Walter Lemos, the national athletics team will have a big party on Saturday 18 June at 10 on the CeNARD track. This day will be marked by the national record attempt of 20,000 meters / hour in the context of the great moment that Argentine athletics is experiencing in long-distance races, with its new figures and the great performances of the recent Ibero-American Championship in Alicante.

The records for these tests, held by Osvaldo Suárez since 20 July 1958, are 19,344.70 meters for one hour and 1h02m00s2 for 20,000 meters.

National marathon record holder and Olympic representative Joaquín Arbe, along with other outstanding athletes like the brand new Ibero-American 21k runner-up, Antonio Poblete, will animate the 20,000m / La Hora race, which starts at 10:00.

And for the first time, this test will be open to women. Among the prominent participants will be the national marathon champion, Karina Fuentealba, as well as Mariela Ortiz, Chiara Mainetti and Dahiana Juárez, among others.

To accompany this tribute, from 11.30 there was also a party with other tests included in this program for both women and men: 200, 1,000 and 3,000 flat meters.

“I am proud that they called me for this tribute, together with the other Argentine athletes. And for me it will be a precious preparation for my great goals in the coming months: the World Marathon in Oregon, in July, and the 21k in Buenos Aires in August, which will also be the South American Half Marathon Championship and where we will try to continue. to put Argentine athletics at the fore in the region, ”Arbe expressed.

The 20,000 meter race / La Hora has a great tradition in national and international athletics, even if it hasn’t been contested for a long time among us. Almost all the long-distance athletes who have made the history of our country have set milestones in this specialty, including world records.

The day has the organization and control of the Metropolitan Athletics Federation, the sponsorship of Jacana – official clothing of the Argentine Athletics Confederation – and the support of the Ñandú Association.

The Ñandú Association promotes this day as part of the preparations for the big races this season for which registrations are already open: the 21k of Buenos Aires / South American and National Championship (21 August) and the Buenos Aires International Marathon ( September 18).

A bit of history

Olympic marathon champion Juan Carlos Zabala – who will celebrate nine decades since his coronation at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games on August 7 – set the 20,000m world record with 1h04m00s2 on April 19, 1936 in Munich. That day, in the midst of a rain and snow storm, Zabala broke the record held by the greatest athlete of his time and the greatest Olympic title winner in history, Finnish Paavo Nurmi. Also, in the one-hour part, Zabala set the South American record by covering 18,753.55 meters.

The next hero in that distance and in our athletics was Juan Raúl Ibarra of Entre Ríos. In 1941 he was going through a moment of exceptional form and won five races of the South American Championship on a gymnastics and fencing track, a figure which has been unmatched until today (5,000 and 10,000 meters, cross country, 3,000 individual and team meters). Days later – June 14 – and in front of a crowd of 20,000 people on the same track, Ibarra broke the world record of 20,000 meters with 1h03m33s1, in addition to the South American time (18,874.91 meters).

Worldwide, the greatest runners in history (the aforementioned Nurmi, the Czech Emil Zatopek, the Belgian Gaston Roelants, the Australian Ron Clarke and more recently the Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie) were among those who broke the 20 thousand meters .

In the second stage of the 1950s, the Argentines Osvaldo Suárez and Walter Lemos became the illustrious heirs of that tradition of great cross-country skiers, giving Argentina numerous medals and records at Pan American, Ibero-American and South American levels. Records were being lowered every day and on July 13, 1958, on the Villa Domínico track, Lemos of Santa Fe set new South American limits in these distances: 1h03m22s4 for 20,000 meters and 18,941.15 meters per hour. In addition, he was timed 47m15 for 15,000m and 50m46 for 10 miles, thus lowering all the South American records that Ibarra had achieved in 1941.

A week later, on the same stage, it was Suárez who broke those records (and Lemos, his great rival, but also his friend and training partner) was on the sidelines to encourage him. Suárez – our multiple Pan American, Ibero American and South American champion and three times champion of the San Silvestre Crossing, being the only Argentine to win it – set these records on 20 July 1958: 15,000 meters (46m29s4), 10 miles (16,094m, 49m53s4), one hour (19,344.70 meters) and 20,000 meters (1h02m00s2).

At the South American level these records have already been surpassed by the Colombian Víctor Mora but, at national level, they are still valid. Mora scored 59m40s4 for 20,000 meters and 20,129 meters for the hour on August 15, 1973 in Essen, Germany.