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More than six decades after the late Harry Jerome sprinted into the record book in Saskatoon on a warm July evening in 1960, an apparent misconception about that breathtaking 100-metre romp has cloaked his finishing time in a bit of mystery.

Though the sport’s official record states otherwise, a recurring claim suggests Jerome actually clocked 9.9 seconds at old Griffiths Stadium during the men’s 100-metre final at the Canadian Olympic trials and should have been recognized as the first person on the planet to smash through the 10-second barrier.

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The Commonwealth Sport Canada website, for instance, states it as fact: “Conceivably one of Canada’s most notable pioneers in sport, Harry Jerome ran 9.9 seconds at the age of 19. However, because the world record time was 10 seconds at the time, the officials could not believe his result and rounded his time up to equal the world time.”

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That claim is repeated on the Sport Information Resource Centre website and in a video entitled, Harry Jerome: Fastest Man on the Planet, in which the narrator states: “Harry broke the world record with a 9.9-second 100-metre run but the officials didn’t believe a human could break the 10-second barrier and they wouldn’t give him the record. They claimed the timekeeper must have made a mistake.”

The Famous Black Canadians video series also floats the idea: “The incredulous judges thought that the stopwatch operator had made a mistake and rounded Harry’s time up to 10 seconds.”

In a 2023 interview with Postmedia, Jerome’s ex-wife Wendy recounted that story.

“In Saskatchewan, the three timers timing him had him at 9.9, all three of them, and they didn’t think people would believe it if they said Harry had run 9.9, so they agreed on 10 seconds. I mean, give me a break,” she said. “They wouldn’t give him the 9.9, but they did give him the 10.”

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And, in a recent interview with Postmedia, former sprinter George Short of Saskatoon, who finished third behind Jerome and Lynn Eves of Victoria in that race, repeated the familiar story.

“My understanding was that the three (timers) all got 9.9 and they rounded up to 10 because they thought nobody would believe them,” Short said. “And then they found out the track was actually longer than 100 metres. I don’t know what it was, but it was longer than 100 metres.

“The more I think about it now, I think the reality of it is, somebody breaking a record in Saskatoon? Who the hell is going to believe that?”

There were indeed three official timers at Griffiths Stadium, stopwatches at the ready, when Jerome, Short, Eves and three other challengers settled into the blocks at 8:20 p.m. on July 15, 1960. According to the world record application form submitted by meet organizers to the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF), two of those timers had Jerome finishing in 10.0 seconds, the other in 10.1 seconds. There is no mention on the application of 9.9, nor did that figure appear in any of the post-race newspaper reports.

“Jerome ripped off the starting blocks like a west coast wind and streaked over the cinders in 10 seconds flat,” wrote Denny Boyd of the Vancouver Sun. “He is the second person in the history of track and field to achieve the phenomenal time.”

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Just 24 days earlier, Armin Hary of Germany ran 10.0 at a race in Zurich, Switzerland, but his world record had not yet been certified by the IAAF when Jerome crossed the line in Saskatoon.

So, when and how did the 9.9-second narrative gain steam? It may well have been given legs by former distance runner Bruce Kidd. Then 16, he had finished his race at the Olympic trials and was an enthusiastic observer of the 100-metre final. In Mighty Jerome, a 2010 documentary from late director Charles Officer, Kidd tells the camera he was sitting with Canadian Olympic track and field team head coach Hal Brown as Jerome powered his way down the straight, well clear of the field.

“We were sitting very close to the finish line. Hal clicked his watch when Harry crossed and it recorded 9.9,” Kidd says in the film. “And because they couldn’t believe that a Canadian could have run that fast, they rounded it to 10 point flat and gave him a tie for the world record and not the record entirely on his own.”

Kidd, now 80 and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, told Postmedia in a recent interview that he did not have any evidence Jerome’s official time had been rounded up from 9.9 seconds.

“I’m at an age where I don’t trust my memory very much, but my memory is I was sitting beside Hal. I was on his right side and pretty close to the finish line and we watched the race and Hal’s watch said 9.9.

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“I’m sure that I saw Hal’s watch. He showed that to me. That I can verify. That part of the story I am sure as shooting about,” he said. “The other? No. I don’t know what I said in Charles Officer’s film, but I do know that rumour was going around.

“But I did not talk to any of the timers. I remember an incredible delay in the release of the final time and I remember seeing an awful lot of consultation, if not consternation, by the referee and judges. And it’s all hand-held and they’re all watches to the tenth from what I can remember, not to the hundredths. But I cannot vouch for the other timers and judges. That was just the rumour that went around. I have no memory of anybody telling me that.

“I was a friend of Harry’s and very partisan and in the excitement, all I can vouch for is Hal’s watch. And remember, we were probably three or four feet from the finish line, but it wasn’t (a 90-degree angle), and it was hand-held.”

Brown, who died in 2002, was one of six official witnesses to sign the application for a world record of 10.0 seconds, attesting to the fact that “we were present at the time the within stated record was made; that it was made in accordance with the IAAF rules and recommend its acceptance.”

Ned Powers was also on site that evening, covering the meet for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix. His published reports on July 16 and 18 made no mention of dispute over Jerome’s winning time.

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“Harry Jerome, the jet-propelled 19-year-old from North Vancouver, became the first Canadian to shatter a world track and field record in 30 years when he sped to victory in the 100-metres with a sensational clocking of 10 seconds flat in Saskatoon Friday night,” Powers wrote for the front page of the July 16 edition.

Harry vs. Hary

In a recent interview with Postmedia, Powers said there may have been a discussion between timers following the race, but he never heard any of them mention a 9.9-second clocking.

“I was standing with (local track coach) Bob Adams at the time. I wasn’t sitting up in a press box or anything like that, I was just standing there with Bob. He just said to me, ‘I think something terrific has just happened,’ but he wanted to go over and check with the timers and see what they knew. I think they took a few minutes before they announced it to the public. They just wanted to be sure. To me, that was an amazing claim to be made, you know. I don’t think the people in the stands knew immediately. I think they had to have a little conference to make sure that it was 10 seconds. I just kind of took it for granted that everybody knew what they were doing on the ground floor.”

It appears as if they did. Meet organizers completed, signed and dated the application form that was eventually sent to IAAF headquarters in Switzerland and certified by that organization’s records committee on Aug. 26 in Rome, during the Olympic Games.

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The application form, obtained by Postmedia from the Museum of World Athletics, is simple but definitive. It includes the date and time of the race (July 15, 1960, at 8:20 p.m.) weather conditions (dry and fair), trailing wind speed (1.753 metres per second) and track composition (cinder, with cement curbs, meeting IAAF regulations).

In addition, official timers Ed Mather and Edward (Ted) Wedge of Saskatoon certified they each had Jerome crossing the line in 10.0 seconds, while the third member of the timing crew, Hank Bestvater of Lloydminster, Sask., certified he stopped his watch at 10.1 seconds.

That contradicts something Powers wrote on the day of the race.

“In the final, he broke away from the starting blocks and didn’t get a scare from anyone as he won handily by six yards. All clocks had Jerome hitting the tape in 10 seconds flat.”

I missed making the Olympics by about two centimetres.

Don Basham

Jerome’s official time was indeed listed on the form as 10.0 seconds, ahead of Eves and Short, who were both recorded at 10.5 seconds. The runners who finished fourth, fifth and sixth were, in order, Bobby Fisher-Smith from Vulcan, Alta., Don Basham of North Vancouver and Bob Patterson of Toronto. Basham, now 82 and living in Sechelt, B.C., said the race is a bit of a painful memory.

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“The thing that stuck in my mind was that I was fifth by about two centimetres and if I had come fourth, I would have gone to the Olympics in Rome. So, I missed making the Olympics by about two centimetres,” he said.

The record-tying final only came off after Short false-started in the first attempt. That may have conjured up visions of Hary’s world record-setting run on June 21 in Zurich’s Stadion Letzigrund, known as one of Europe’s fastest tracks.

Hary was a brash 23-year-old, working part-time as a clerk in a furniture store when he wasn’t winning races with his fast starts and creating headlines with his quick wit. Days prior to the race, he told reporters, “Rudolf Valentino was called the Thief of Hearts, I am the Thief of Starts.”

Sure enough, video of the Zurich race shows Hary clearly jumped the gun, but the starter’s pistol malfunctioned and did not sound again, so the race continued. Hary won easily enough, and the three official timers clocked him in 10.0, 10.0 and 9.9. However, the race was annulled by the jury because of Hary’s flying start. He appealed and was granted a re-run, but only two other finalists agreed to line up again. In the re-run, held 50 minutes after the first race, Hary was again victorious and the official timers clocked him at 10.1, 10.0 and 10.0. Awarded a time of 10.0, he had broken the existing world record of 10.1, held by three Americans; W.J. Williams, Ira Murchison and Leamon King.

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In Saskatoon three weeks later, official starter Stan Green signed the world record application, certifying that a fair start had occurred and “no advantage was given to or taken by the claimant,” that being Jerome. Chief timekeeper and referee Edgar (Wally) Stinson certified that “all officials (were) trained and fully qualified” by the Saskatchewan branch of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAAU) of Canada.

Six additional witnesses certified the veracity of the record: Jack Wilkie and Clarence Bligh of Regina, Ken West and Gerry Turner of Saskatoon, W.H. (Hal) Brown of Toronto and Neil Farrell of Hamilton, Ont. Bligh was president of the AAAU, Farrell was chairman of the AAAU’s national track and field committee, and Brown was head coach of the Olympic team.

In another section of the application, Stefan Frankel, a professional engineer, and Tony Balezantis, a civil engineer working for the City of Saskatoon, certified they measured the course with a steel tape, and its length was exactly 100.0 metres/328.08 feet, and that the “allowance for lateral inclination did not exceed 1:100 and in the running direction 1:1000.”

In a recent interview with Postmedia, Balezantis said the track was level and “I think they found it was just a shade longer than a hundred metres. Nothing really significant.”

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That fits with a claim made by Adams in the July 19, 1960, edition of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

“Adams said the track had been measured twice and found to be 2/1,000ths of an inch too long,” the story stated. “The wind gauge had been checked and found accurate. And a test of the track had proved it to be uphill, rather than down.”

The upward slope of the track was also noted by late author Fil Fraser in his 2006 biography of Jerome, entitled Running Uphill.

“It was the kind of thing where you say, ‘Holy smokes, did I actually see what just happened?’ Harry just ran like the wind.

Bruce Kidd

“One observer noted wryly that when officials measured the track, they found it to be one-quarter inch higher at the end than at the beginning,” Fraser wrote. “Jerome was running uphill, he said, something he did, figuratively, all of his life.”

However, neither the additional length nor uphill grade was significant enough to have affected Jerome’s winning time, which Hary famously disputed in an Associated Press report carried by newspapers around the world on July 30, 1960.

“Ten flat? Ridiculous. No one can run that fast,” he said, meaning that no one other than he could do it.

But Jerome did, and a crowd of about 3,000 observers was captivated.

“It was a pretty amazing race,” said Kidd. “It was the kind of thing where you say, ‘Holy smokes, did I actually see what just happened?’ Harry just ran like the wind.”

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Jerome had won his heat in 10.7 seconds and semifinal in 10.8 and was obviously saving his best for last that day. The conditions for the final were perfect, about 21C, a robust but legal wind pushing Jerome and the other runners toward the finish line.

“He said he was feeling good and feeling better as he moved down the track,” recalled Powers. “It was such a dramatic thing and it was dramatic for me, too. I wound up on Page 1 of the StarPhoenix and that only happened two or three times in my life.”

There is video evidence of Jerome’s dominance on that day, grainy black and white footage of the race shot by CBC Saskatchewan, but it does not provide irrefutable proof of his winning time. Omega, the official timer of the Olympic Games, declined a Postmedia request to conduct an analysis of the CBC clip, which was posted on YouTube three years ago and has had almost 5,000 views.

Shot from near the finish line, it shows a puff of smoke emanating from Green’s starter’s pistol.

“And they’re off and running,” the commentator begins. “And it’s a good start. And here they come roaring down to the finish line. Harry Jerome of Vancouver out in front. George Short running in second spot. Lynn Eves also in there. Harry Jerome the winner of the men’s 100-metre final.”

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The video shows Jerome’s chest hitting the finish line string, but there is simply not enough reliable information in the video for Omega to process.

“We’re afraid it’s not possible to time the race retroactively,” the company said in a statement from its headquarters in Switzerland. “There are too many variables. The timing technology was vastly different.

“Today, we have photo finish technology capable of gathering thousands of digital images per second, as well as electronic starting blocks linked precisely to the starting pistol to measure false starts. The races in the past were timed precisely and fairly, within the restraints of the existing technology and according to the rules of international federations. Which in this case, came down to human-operated stopwatches.

“There are other issues in timing video footage, such as the video itself. Has it slowed down/sped up over time? Is the sound of the start delayed? Does the position of the camera have an impact on the visuals?

“We’re sorry it’s not possible to help further. We couldn’t in good faith re-time the race and make it official. We can only give our assurances that Omega has timed with precision and impartiality, and according to the rules set by sports federations, since our first Olympic Games in 1932.”

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World Athletics, formerly known as the IAAF, converts hand-held times to digital equivalents by adding .24 seconds for races shorter than 300 metres, meaning that the world record-setting run by Hary and the world record-tying run by Jerome in 1960 are both listed as 10.0h, equivalent to a fully automatic time of 10.24.

“Timing in those days, the ‘60s, was with a stopwatch and it relied on the timers seeing the smoke from the gun 100 yards away, 100 metres away, and making a judgment call when the tape was broken by the chest of the runner,” said Basham. “Today the gun is connected to the timing equipment and it’s all electronic and it’s a beam of light, so the accuracy now, you can’t dispute it.

“But back in the day, it was ‘how quick is your finger?’ I coached track and field for a while and I used to time my athletes and you had to know which finger to push the button down on the clock, because the padding on the end of your (thumb), there is too much there to go through before you trigger the clock, so you have to use one of the index fingers where there is (less) flesh. All kinds of things like that were all part and parcel of the art, I guess, of being a timer. It was a tough job. This is why these debates are happening.”

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He referred to a photo in a 1962 edition of the Vancouver Province that showed Jerome’s record-tying, 9.2-second run in the 100 yards. Basham was third in that race, Eves second.

“The four timers aren’t even standing behind one another. They’re standing side by side and one of them is leaning over so he can see the finish line, so go figure. They’re claiming this is a world record in Vancouver. You see the position of where the timers are and you have to shake your head. I’m guessing that’s why the long debate took place in Saskatoon, because they wanted to get it right.”

Jerome, Eves and Short all advanced from the trials in Saskatoon to the Olympics in Rome later that summer. Eves and Short were eliminated in the 100-metre heats, while Jerome’s quest for Olympic gold ended in dramatic and devastating fashion when he pulled a muscle in the semifinal and failed to advance.

However, he would go on to own or share seven world records and win a bronze medal in the 100-metres at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. He died of a brain aneurysm in 1982 at age 42.

Short was watching TV with his daughters at their home in Montreal when news of Jerome’s death flashed onto the screen. Coverage included video of that record-setting run in Saskatoon 22 years earlier.

“My daughters were quite young at the time and this flashed on the TV,” said Short. “They were probably eight and 10. I don’t think I had ever spoken to them about it. The girls said, ‘Dad, there you are.’”

Indeed, there he was, finishing half a second behind one of the fastest men on the planet.

dbarnes@postmedia.com

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