Flashes of Panic

When it looked like Shalane Flanagan might have a shot at winning the 5,000m/10,000m double at the Olympic Trials (and you have to admit not many people would’ve picked Goucher to beat her until it happened—she is the AR holder, after all), I looked up previous winners of the “Woolworth Double” (five and dime—now there’s an obsolete figure of speech.) I never needed to use the research, so why not regurgitate it here?

Women have only been running the 5,000m since 1996, so there have only been four Trials including both distances. (I checked the 3,000m/10,000m doubles, just in case.) No women have done the double.

Only two men have done it: Don Lash in 1936 and Curt Stone in 1952. Lash, who was the world record holder at the time, actually tied in the 5,000m with Louis Zamperini.

Now Playing: Life On the Moon from We Will Become Like Birds by Erin McKeown