Texas Relays crowd (© University of Texas)
The Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays (1925) in Austin in Texas, USA, which is celebrating its centenary this year, has been awarded the World Athletics Heritage Plaque in the category of ‘Competition’.
The Texas Relays have attracted a pantheon of Olympic and world champions and world record-breakers during its history. In 1925, the undoubted star was Harold Osborn who had won the Olympic high jump title in Paris the previous year and set an unratified world record during the inaugural meeting. While last year, Gabrielle Thomas and Valarie Allman were among the individual event winners in the Texas Relays, and they were later crowned Paris 2024 Olympic champions.
The World Athletics Heritage Plaque is a location-based recognition, awarded for an outstanding contribution to the worldwide history and development of the sport of track and field athletics and of out of stadia athletics disciplines such as cross country, mountain, road, trail and ultra-running, and race walking.
“World Athletics is delighted to celebrate the centenary of the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays by saluting its outstanding contribution to the history of track and field athletics with the award of the World Athletics Heritage Plaque,” said World Athletics President Sebastian Coe.
“This honour is testament to the pioneering work of University of Texas coach Clyde Littlefield and athletic director Theo Bellmont who founded the event in Austin in 1925, and did so much to the develop the meeting into what has become a Texas sporting institution. Annually, more than 5000 high school, collegiate and unattached runners take part in the four-day event which is only superseded in size in the USA by the Penn Relays.
“Over the last hundred years the Texas Relays has annually attracted the greatest star names such as nine-time Olympic champion Carl Lewis and last year’s three-time Paris Olympic gold medallist Gabrielle Thomas, drawing huge crowds of avid sports fans to one of the world’s must-see track and field spectaculars.”
The Texas Relays (© University of Texas)
University of Texas Athletics Director Chris Del Conte commented: “The impact the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays has on The University of Texas, our great state and the sport of track and field is incredible. It has a rich and storied history that goes back 100 years now and continues to not only be an annual highlight of our athletics seasons, but a weekend that teams and competitors from high schoolers to professionals look forward to every year.
“Featuring a who’s who of participants, fans always pack the house and absolutely love and cherish it. It is truly a track and field treasure. When you look at the list of legends, Longhorn greats, and current and future Olympians who have competed here, both before and after they were legends, it’s phenomenal. And the best part is it was founded and created by our Texas Athletics leaders of generations ago and has been a staple of our campus for 100 years.
“Our motto here at Texas is: ‘What starts here changes the world,’ and the Texas Relays is an event that epitomises that. It has such awesome gravitas, brings the world’s best together, and shines a spotlight on a magnificent sport. As a former track and field competitor and a huge fan, it’s something that I personally hold near and dear to my heart. There’s nothing like the Texas Relays weekend, it’s really awesome.”
A storied history
The meeting was the inspiration of Clyde Littlefield, the head track and field coach at The University of Texas from 1920 to 1961. As a student Littlefield was an impressive sportsman at American football, basketball and in track and field athletics as a sprinter and hurdler.
On 27 March 1925, Littlefield founded the Texas Relays with the university’s athletic director Theo Bellmont, who had led the drive to build the Memorial Stadium which opened the previous year and hosted the inaugural meeting. That stadium was to remain the meeting’s home until 1999 when the Mike A. Myers Stadium was opened. The Texas Relays began as a men’s only event and it wasn’t until 1963 that women's events were added to the programme.
Famously, in the 1977 edition, Montreal Olympic 4x100m relay gold medallist John Wesley Jones recorded a time of 9.85 in the 100m which would have been a world record had the electronic timing system, introduced that year, not malfunctioned.
The Texas Relays have always drawn the best sprinters to Austin; Bobbie Morrow, Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson, Maurice Greene, Merlene Ottey and most recently Julien Alfred and Gabrielle Thomas to name but a few.
Texas Relays in 1984 (© University of Texas)
Similarly, the infield has been graced by numerous Olympic and world champions and world record-breakers from throwing giants such Al Oerter, Randy Matson, Ryan Crouser and Valarie Allman, to vaulting aces Mondo Duplantis and Jenn Suhr, who hold current meeting records.
Two ratified world records in Olympic standard events have been set at the meeting: USA’s Bill Nieder with 19.99m in the shot put on 2 April 1960 and Sweden’s Kjell Isaksson who pole vaulted 5.51m on 8 April 1972.
Chris Turner for World Athletics Heritage
