Horace Ashenfelter
Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Full name | Horace Ashenfelter, III | ||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Collegeville, Pennsylvania, U.S. | January 23, 1923||||||||||||||||||||
Died | January 6, 2018 West Orange, New Jersey, U.S. | (aged 94)||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
|
Horace Ashenfelter III (January 23, 1923 – January 6, 2018)
Biography
Ashenfelter was born in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, where he attended Collegeville High School. He completed his degree at Penn State, where he was a member of Delta Upsilon fraternity, and served in the United States Army Air Forces as a pilot and gunnery instructor during World War II.[2]
Although he was considered a long shot, Ashenfelter was the surprise winner of the
Ashenfelter won the Millrose Games two-mile run from 1952 to 1955 and again in 1957. His best winning time was in 1954 at 8:53.3. He won the USA Cross Country Championships back-to-back in 1954–1955, three years after his Olympian younger brother Bill Ashenfelter had won the same championship, the only set of brothers to both win the event.
He was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1975, the Millrose Games Hall of Fame in 2001 as a five-time champion and the National Distance Running Hall of Fame in 2012. He was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey in 1998.[3]
Personal life
Ashenfelter lived in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, where the Ashenfelter 8k Classic is held annually in his honor.[2][4] The indoor track facility at his alma mater, Penn State, is named in his honor.[5]
Ashenfelter died at a nursing home in West Orange, New Jersey, on January 6, 2018, 17 days before his 95th birthday.[2]
See also
References
- ^ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Horace Ashenfelter". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on February 15, 2011. Retrieved April 1, 2010.
- ^ a b c d McFadden, Robert D. "Horace Ashenfelter, Olympic Victor of a Cold War Showdown, Dies at 94", The New York Times, January 7, 2018. Accessed January 7, 2018. "Horace Ashenfelter, an American runner who set a world record in the steeplechase at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, Finland, beating an overwhelmingly favored Soviet champion in what was billed as a test of Cold War supremacy, died on Saturday morning in a nursing home in West Orange, N.J.... He retired in 1993 but continued to run frequently in Glen Ridge, N.J., where he lived. The town’s annual Thanksgiving Day run is called the Ashenfelter eight-kilometer classic."
- Penn State University, November 7, 2012. Accessed January 7, 2018. "He has been inducted into a number of Hall of Fames over the years, including the USA Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1975 and the New Jersey Sports Hall of Fame in 1998."
- ^ A8KClassic
- ^ Horace Ashenfelter III Indoor Track
- Wallechinsky, David and Jamie Loucky (2008). "Track & Field (Men): 3000-Meter Steeplechase". In The Complete Book of the Olympics – 2008 Edition. London: Aurum Press Limited. pp. 169–70.
External links
- Running Past profile
- Horace Ashenfelter at the USATF Hall of Fame (archived)