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The Santa Monica Track Club (also known as SMTC) was formed by Joe Douglas as a post-collegiate track club. [1] By the 1980s, the team came to be a major player in worldwide Track and Field competition, with team members setting numerous World and National records. The membership list reads like a Who's Who of Olympic athletes and the SMTC logo became a recognizable icon on the uniforms of those elite athletes.
In its first year of existence, 1968 Olympian from Puerto Rico, Willie Rios joined the club and qualified to run in the 1972 Summer Olympics. In 1974, member Reid Harter set the first American Record in the road 30 Kilometre run. By 1976, three team members qualified for the 1976 Summer Olympics. [2]
In 1979, a young Carl Lewis, then known as a top level High School long jumper, joined the club for competitions beyond his collegiate career at the University of Houston. Lewis went on to be the dominant force in sprinting and long jump for the next decade. Coached in the off season by his collegiate coach Tom Tellez, other elite sprinters were attracted to the club, including Carol Lewis, Carl's sister and University of Houston teammates Joe DeLoach, Leroy Burrell and Kirk Baptiste. The club developed an impressive record of Olympic and World Championships, limited in many situations because teammates were the closest competition at the highest level. Lewis and Burrell exchanged the prestigious World Record in the 100 metres four times.
Four members of the club, Michael Marsh, Leroy Burrell, Floyd Heard and Carl Lewis, representing the Santa Monica Track Club tied the world record in the 4x100 meters relay at the Herculis meet in Monaco. The record lasted for four days until it was surpassed by a team representing the USA that consisted of three of the SMTC members, with Dennis Mitchell replacing Heard. The same four members set the World Record in the 4 x 200 metre relay, set at the Mt. SAC Relays in 1994. [3] That record lasted over 20 years until it was surpassed by .05 by a team from Jamaica at the 2014 IAAF World Relays. Also Kevin Young's World Record in the 400 metre hurdles set in winning the 1992 Summer Olympics stood until 1 July 2021. [4]
The club was elected into the Mt. SAC Relays Hall of Fame in 2011. [5]
The club is funded through the Santa Monica Track Club Foundation, founded by Ed Stotsenberg (who had the personalized license plate SMTC 1), an early Masters runner who joined the club in the mid-1970s and became its president. [6] [7]
Frederick Carlton Lewis is an American former track and field athlete who won nine Olympic gold medals, one Olympic silver medal, and 10 World Championships medals, including eight gold. His career spanned from 1979 to 1996, when he last won an Olympic event. He is one of only six Olympic athletes who won a gold medal in the same individual event in four consecutive Olympic Games.
The World Athletics Championships are a biennial athletics competition organized by World Athletics. Alongside the Olympic Games, they represent the highest level championships of senior international outdoor athletics competition for track and field athletics globally, including marathon running and race walking. Separate World Championships are held by World Athletics for certain other outdoor events, including cross-country running and half-marathon, as well as indoor and age-group championships.
Michael Lawrence Marsh is a retired American sprinter, the 1992 Olympic champion in the 200 m.
The 400 metres, or 400-meter dash, is a sprint event in track and field competitions. It has been featured in the athletics programme at the Summer Olympics since 1896 for men and since 1964 for women. On a standard outdoor running track, it is one lap around the track. Runners start in staggered positions and race in separate lanes for the entire course. In many countries, athletes previously competed in the 440-yard dash (402.336 m)—which is a quarter of a mile and was referred to as the 'quarter-mile'—instead of the 400 m (437.445 yards), though this distance is now obsolete.
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Leroy Russel Burrell is an American former track and field athlete, who twice set the world record for the 100 m sprint.
Angelo F. Taylor is an American track and field athlete, winner of 400-meter hurdles at the 2000 and 2008 Summer Olympics. His personal record for the hurdles event is 47.25 seconds. His time puts him in a tie with Félix Sánchez for the #14 performer of all time. Sánchez also won two Olympic gold medals, in 2004 between Taylor's two golds and 2012, immediately following. Taylor also has a 400-meter dash best of 44.05 seconds, ranking him as the #25 performer of all time, superior to any other athlete who has made a serious effort in the 400 metres hurdles. He won the bronze medal in the 400 m at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics.
Tamsyn Carolyn Lewis is an Australian media personality and former track and field athlete who won a total of eighteen Australian Championships across the 400 metres, 800 metres and 400m hurdles. She first represented Australia in 1994, and won the 800 metres in the 2008 World Indoor Championships.
John Lee Gray Jr. is a retired American world class 800 meter runner from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s and the holder of the 600m world best. A four-time-Olympian (1984-1996) in 1985 he set the US record of 1:42.60 at a meet in Koblenz. That time puts Gray as the nineteenth fastest performer of all time. He came seventh in the 1984 Summer Olympics, fifth in 1988, and won the bronze medal at the Barcelona Olympics of 1992. In 1993 Gray was one of the favourites to win a gold medal at the World Championships in Stuttgart as he had won the A-race at the prestigious meeting in Zurich. However, he failed to qualify for the final in Stuttgart. He also set the world 600 meter record in 1986 at 1:12.81. In 1992 and 1993 Gray came close to breaking the world indoor record over 800 m several times. He held the US indoor record at 1:45.00 till February 2019.
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Louis Jacobus van Zyl, better known as L. J. van Zyl, is a South African athlete competing in the 400 metre hurdles. He is the South African record holder in the event with a personal best of 47.66 seconds, which he achieved twice, three months apart. His time ranks him in the all-time top 25. He is a three-time African Champion in the event and competed for his country at the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics.
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Dawn C. Burrell is an American chef and retired long jumper. She won the gold medal at the 2001 IAAF World Indoor Championships and represented the United States at the 2000 Summer Olympics. In her culinary career, she was a semifinalist in 2020 for a James Beard Foundation Award. Burrell is the younger sister of former 100 m world record holder Leroy Burrell.
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Cameron Burrell was an American sprinter. He was the NCAA Division I champion over 100 meters in 2018, and anchored the Houston Cougars to victory in the 4 × 100 meters relay in 2017 and 2018. He ran for the United States 4 × 100 m relay team at the World Junior Championships in 2012 and the World Relays in 2019, with the team earning gold and silver from each competition respectively. Additionally Burrell anchored the U.S. 4 × 100 m relay team to gold at the inaugural Athletics World Cup in 2018.
