THE NEBRASKA 100

Defeated famed Swedish schoolmaster Edvin Wide in the indoor mile, winning in 4:12.2, only one-fifth second slower than the world record, on St. Patrick's Day 1927 at the old Madison Square Garden in New York City. He set seven world records.

He ran at the Paris Games of 1924 and the Amsterdam Games of 1928, his background virtually unknown. All that the world track and field community knew was that Falls City's Lloyd Hahn was America's top middle-distance runner from 1923 until the day he retired, on his 30th birthday in 1928, after an 800-meter victory in Cologne, Germany.

According to his parents, his running career began at age 4 "when he tipped over a beehive and outdistanced the irate inhabitants to the pond.''

Paying his own way to events because, as one historian wrote, "track did not have a high rating in Falls City at the time and the athletic treasury was depleted,'' he took second in a tri-state meet at Tarkio, Mo., one year and won it by himself the next year with five firsts and a second. He won three gold medals at the state track meets in 1919 and 1920, setting the 440 state record as a senior.

Hahn went one year to Brown University. He then ran for the Boston Athletic Association, which he represented in his two Olympic appearances. He was sixth in the 1,500 in 1924 and fifth in the 800 in 1928 after breaking the world record during the Olympic Trials. At one time, he owned seven world records.

He was the first American to break any of Paavo Nurmi's records. But his greatest race was in the 1927 Knights of Columbus Games at Madison Square Garden, where he bested famed Swedish schoolmaster Edvin Wide by 4 yards.

In his retirement, Hahn seldom left his farm southwest of Falls City -- until he took an interest in another hometown runner, Gil Dodds. Hahn coached Dodds, who went on to win the 1943 Sullivan Award winner as the nation's outstanding amateur athlete.

-- Stu Pospisil