Before the final, Bacheler was sick and was not able to compete. Shorter sought out Bacheler who was an Olympic finalist in the 5,000 meters at the 1968 Olympics. He then made his way back to Gainesville in 1970. A relationship and familiarity was formed.Īfter graduating from Yale, Shorter did a brief stint at medical school in New Mexico and training in El Paso, Texas. He and Bacheler warmed down together after the race and spoke a bit.

There, I ran an open two mile and was beaten by a straightaway or half a straight away by Jack Bacheler, who was running for the Florida Track Club,” he recounts. “When I was at Yale, we competed in the Florida Relays. 31, found his way to Gainesville by a chance meeting. Shorter, who now resides in Falmouth, Mass., and will turn 75 on Oct. 'It wasn’t ‘Oh, I’ve won and all of this is going to follow.’ It was ‘Ok, that was how I was going to do it, I gave it a try and it worked.’ So that was the satisfaction of meeting that short-term goal and doing everything you could to do it.”ĭavid Whitley: In honor of Fourth of July, celebrate the greatest sports country on earthĪ reunion celebrating Shorter’s and the Florida Track Club’s accomplishment will be held Jan 13-16, 2023, in Gainesville. “Once I crossed the finish line, the first thought in my mind was ‘I did it right.’ In other words, the strategy had worked,' Shorter said recently. Shorter did it representing Gainesville's Florida Track Club. He won the first gold medal in the marathon by an American since 1908 and was only the third American to win since the inception of the Olympics in 1896.

Approaching the 50th anniversary of his win in the marathon at the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany, on Sept 10, 1972, former Gainesville resident Frank Shorter remained sensible about his accomplishment.

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