 Philippa Raschker, 2007 GJ of the Year |  |
Raschker wins 2007 GeezerJock of the Year
Just three months and a competition or two into what was to be another fantastic season, Philippa -- she prefers Phil -- Raschker took a few minutes off and sat in the bleachers during the USA Masters Indoor Track & Field Championships in Boston last March and stated her goals.
Nice and simple. Right up front. Not delivered in a cocky, conceited fashion, just a to-the-point, this-is-what-I-expect-of-myself manner. "Win everything," Raschker said. "That's my goal. The last good year I had was 10 years ago, 1997. At least what I consider good, when I did what I'm capable of."
It should be noted before we go any further that Raschker, despite battling some injuries, has had a bundle of very good years and that 1997 was an amazing one. She made a shambles of the World Masters Athletics championships held in South Africa that season, winning 10 gold medals in sprints, jumps and the heptathlon and, well, sprinting and jumping and vaulting away with yet another IAAF Female Masters Athlete of the Year Award.
So what did Raschker go out and do?
Put up a 2007 that matched 1997, that's all, down to the IAAF Female Masters Athlete of the Year Award. The accountant from Marietta, Ga., turned 60 on Feb. 21. And the age-group attack was on. Raschker assaulted world and meet records and harvested medals in Boston in March, in Birmingham, Ala., in June, in Louisville, Ky., in July and in Orono, Maine, in August. No mark was safe.
Then came Riccione, Italy, and the World Masters Athletics championships in September. Raschker's meet: 10 more gold medals in the heptathlon, 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash, long jump, triple jump, high jump, pole vault, 80-meter hurdles (twice lowering her own W60 world record), and 300-meter hurdles with her final gold medal coming as a member of the women's 4 x 100-meter medley relay team. Her haul for the year: 12 world records, 31 U.S. records, an Outstanding Athlete of the Games award at the World Championships and bushels of medals, including 27 gold medals collected at five national championship meets.
"It was a great year," Raschker allowed. "I didn't know it was going to happen like that, but you always hope. That's why you get out of the bed in the morning. Of course, in a sense, one is never satisfied. You're always striving for the highest points. But at the same time you have to look at the overall picture, and obviously it couldn't have been any better than what happened."
What difference does a decade make? Not much, apparently, when you may very well be the finest athlete Masters sports has ever produced. "Ounce-for-ounce and age-for-age, Phil is one of the most talented track athletes of all time," said Ken Stone, founder and co-webmaster of masterstrack.com. "She's having a blast. When you're so talented you win nearly every event you enter it tends to be a lot of fun."
Stone chuckled about Raschker's role in "Racing Against the Clock," a documentary film that follows her and four other women to the World Championships in Puerto Rico in 2003. "There's one little clip where she's high jumping, and just after she finishes her name is announced to go to the medal podium for another event and she rushes off to get her medal," Stone said. "It's so cute. She's the Energizer bunny. She just loves to compete."
Always has.
Raschker started with swimming and gymnastics back home in what was then West Germany and got into track and field when she was 10. She came to the United States in the late 1960s as a governess and planned to be here a couple of years but ended up staying. She was in her early 30s and had been away from track and field for a bit when she clipped an item about a meet in Raleigh, N.C., and figured she could do that. Soon, she was competing again.
Beset by injuries and finding it expensive to get to meets, and with a slew of gold medals on her mantel, Raschker retired at age 51 after her standout 1997 season. But only briefly. She had surgery on her ailing Achilles tendon, landed a sponsor and was right back at it.
Raschker has continued to be slowed by injuries in recent years -- not so much this season -- and used 2007 as a bit of a trial run. "If this year had not worked out and I had been injured, I would probably have stepped away from it," she said. Certainly not the staying fit part, and not necessarily the competitive part, she stressed, but thetrack and field piece of it.
Instead, she's looking forward to the Masters Indoor World Championships in France in March and further down the road the next outdoor World Championships in Lahti, Finland, in 2009 and she's even talking up the one after that in Sacramento in 2011. Being 60, she conceded, is not the same as being 50 and it's harder to bounce back from the competition and training. "Age caught up to me," she said.
Well, sort of.
She won her medals in Italy, but had to pace herself through a busy 11 days and was not able to go after records as fiercely as in 1997. She plans to do more record hunting in 2008. No doubt, as always, she will line up to race and get chatty with her rivals and buddies just before she gets in the blocks. It's her way, she said, to relieve stress and tension. "I'm not sure the other athletes like it," she said with a laugh. "But that's the nice thing about the Masters. We are one big, happy family."
Carla Hoppe, 50 and another member of the U.S. team, saw Raschker as a role model. "She's very supportive," Hoppe said. "She wants to be an example for other women. Not that we all need to compete at the level she does, but we can do the same things she does no matter what level we're at. She shows everyone it doesn't matter how old you are, or how young you are, you can do this, too."