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Arturo Barrios was a distance runner who was equally adept both on the
road and on the track, winning four consecutive San Francisco Bay to
Breakers races at the former discipline between 1987 and 1990. In the
10,000m final at the 1987 World Championships in Rome, Barrios finished
fourth amongst some confusion, as he was one of a number of athletes who
came to a complete stop at the end of the 24th lap due to a mistake by
the lap-marking official.
At the Olympic Games in Seoul the following
year, Barrios finished fifth in the final of the 10,000m, but was
eliminated in the heats of the 5000m held two days later. Arturo's
finest moment came at West Berlin on 18 August 1989, when he broke the
10,000m world record by over 5 seconds, setting a new mark of 27min
08.23sec. Barrios had a mixed year in 1991, starting off the season by
setting a new 1 hour world record at Le Fleche on 30 March, covering 21,
101m to become the first man to run a half marathon in less than an
hour. On the way to his record, Barrios also set a new world record for
20000m of 56min 55.6sec.
After competing in the 10,000m at the Bislett
Games in Oslo on 6 July, where he finished fourth, Arturo concentrated
on the shorter distances during the remainder of the season, competing
at the Parcelforce Games (see photo above) in London (Crystal
Palace) on 12 July, before successfully defending his Pan-American 5000m
title in Havana the following month. Barrios did not compete at that
year's World Championships in Tokyo, and at his final Olympic appearance
at Barcelona on 3 August 1992, he finished fifth in the final of the
10000m, duplicating the result he achieved in Seoul four years earlier. (Ron Casey)
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