Biographical Sketches of ARRS Members

This section provides a look at some of the members of the ARRS, together with some of their background and interests.

Andy Milroy (ENG)

Andy Milroy is the ARRS Co-ordinator as well as a global road running historian, writer and statistician. He is the author of “The Long Distance Record Book,” editor of books on training for ultradistance events, and the primary originator of the Ultra Marathon Race Handbook, the accepted rule book for Ultrarunning. He is retired from a long career as a teacher. He is the co-ordinator for the Ultramarathon working group and one of the ARRS founding members. He may be reached at AndyMilroy@blueyonder.co.uk.

Ken Young (USA)

Ken Young set USA records at 40 miles and the indoor marathon in the early 1970's while earning a PhD in geophysical sciences with a minor in statistics. He learned to program computers in 1965 and has been working with computers ever since. He first used a computer to produce race results in 1970, and produced computer-based running performance rankings in 1975 while teaching at the University of Arizona. By 1980, these rankings had developed into the National Running Data Center which pioneered and developed road records in the United States (now operated as the RRIC by the USAT&F). In the 1990s Ken developed a relational database for distance running and began the Analytical Distance Runner newsletter. Co-founder of ARRS, Ken maintains the ARRS database of more than 400,000 performances and is the webmaster for the ARRS website.

Birger Fält (SWE)

Birger Falt (Sweden) is a race walker at the highest level; he competed in the 1999 World Championships at 20km; he is a race walking and long distance running statistician and also a course measurer. He is the co-ordinator of the Race Walking working group and is one of the ARRS founding members. He may be reached at birger.falt@telia.com.

Pete Riegel (USA)

Pete Riegel (United States) is a former IAAF Measurement Co-ordinator for the Americas; Chairman of the USA federation Road Running Technical Council for many years, and founding editor of Measurement News, the newsletter that disseminated good practice in course measurement world wide. He is the co-ordinator of the Certified Courses working group and is one of the ARRS founding members. He may be reached at Riegelpete@aol.com.

David Blaikie (CAN)

David Blaikie is a former journalist and now works in public relations. He is a athletics historian and statistician and did much to establish a solid statistical base for Canadian Ultrarunning. David is well known for being the webmaster of the highly respected Ultramarathon World website (www.ultramarathonworld.com). He is one of the ARRS founding members. He may be reached at db@davidblaikie.com.

Enzio Rivis (ITA)

Enzio Rivis (ITA) is a ATFS (Association of Track & Field Statisticians) member and he is specifically interested in Marathon statistics. He has a personal World marathon lists up to 2:15:00 for men and 2:38:00 for women and is working to extend them. He is a member of the Marathons working group. He may be reached at enzo_rivis@email.whirlpool.com.

Andre Vazquez (BRA/ESP)

André Vazquez of Brazil is now living in Spain but still has many contacts in Brazil. He competes as an ultra runner and is interested in multi-day statistics particularly.

Wim vanHemert (NED)

For over 35 years Wim was a sport journalist for the National Press Agency (Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau) ANP. He covered every Olympic Games from 1968 to 1992, every World Championships from Helsinki thru Stuttgart, every European championships from 1962. He also worked (free lance) for Eurosport and Dutch radio. In 1981 he was co-founder of the Rotterdam Marathon. He has translated some 20 books from English and German to Dutch, and has written several books about marathoning. He produces the press kits for the Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Enschede and Eindhoven marathons. A marathon runner, he has kept marathon lists (world, European and Dutch) since 1981.

Osman Atakan Tekin (TUR)

Osman is Editor in Chief of the Maraton Turk website (www.maratonturk.com). He got interested in Athletics in 1962 and wore the colours of Fenerbahce Sports Club between 1962-1970. He worked on the founding committee of the Istanbul Eurasia Marathon in 1979. He helped found the International Golden Horn Half Marathon in 1986 and was the race director for four years. He was the Turkish delegate to the 1986 and 1987 IAAF congresses and to the AIMS world congress in Melbourne in 1988. He was appointed as the AIMS Press & Public Relations Manager for Turkiye in 1998. He has been to 52 countries on 6 continents and has run 49 marathons in 19 countries. He is a bachelor and speaks English and a little Italian besides his native language of Turkish. He may be reached at maratonturk@hotmail.com

Gunars Akerbergs (LAT)

Gunars Akerbergs was born in 1947 in Saulkrasti, 47 km from Riga. Studies at Latvian University brought him to Riga. From 1973 until 1991 he worked on Latvian Sports Committee but since January 1992 he has been an official at Latvian Football federation.
Gunars ran his first Marathon in 1969, at the age 22.and in 1975 he began keeping statistics on Latvian marathon runners. He has published three handbooks of Latvian marathon statistics, the last covering the period of 1927-1999. Since the end of 1996 he has edited a newsletter "Maratona Zinas" (Marathon News). His website is www.marathon.lv/index.htm

Last Updated on 25 Nov 2005