Why Is Dave Wottle Overlooked?

Running in the era of legends.

Dave Wottle is famous for 2 things:

How he won his Gold medal in 1972,

Forgetting to take his trademark golf hat off during the medal ceremony.

However, even among running history buffs Wottle is often an afterthought when talking about his era. When you think of 60’s-70’s running, the names that often come to mind are the likes of Pre, Shorter, Ryun, Coe, Viren, Keno and so on. I want to leave it up to you to decide whether his footnote in history is just or not but I do believe that he is underrated for 3 reasons that I will explore below. Those 3 reasons being the 1972 Olympic season, the 1972 Olympics themselves, and Wottle’s career post-1972 compared to some of his compatriots.

1972 Olympic Trials

The 1972 US Olympic trials is a real who’s who of Track & Field royalty. ‘Pre’ set the 5000m US record and was thought of as a shoo-in for the podium, Frank Shorter won the 10k — while Jeff Galloway came in 2nd — and dueled one of my favorite authors, Kenny…