Alberto Salazar is one of the most popular and richest Runner who was born on August 7, 1958 in Havana, Cuba. Record-holding distance runner who won three New York City Marathons in the 1980s.
Ahmad Rashad is also a member of the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame.
Born in Cuba, Salazar grew up in Wayland, Massachusetts. His father Jose was a close friend of Fidel Castro and fellow Cuban revolutionary, who became an opponent of the Communist government and member of the anti-Castro movement. The younger Salazar was an outstanding high school runner who was state cross country champion in 1975. He trained wıth the well known Greater Boston Track Club (whose members included the likes of Bill Rodgers, Randy Thomas, and Greg Meyer) where he was given the nickname of “the rookie”.
From Massachusetts he went to the University of Oregon where he won numerous All American honors, was a member of the 1977 NCAA cross country championship team, and won the individual NCAA cross country championship in 1978. Salazar won the 1978 NCAA national cross country championship in cold, snowy conditions, handing Track & Field News Athlete of the Year Henry Rono one of his few losses of the year. He finished 2nd to Rono in a memorable duel at the 1979 NCAA national cross country championships at Lehigh University, in which Rono (28:19) and Salazar (28:28) ran the 3rd and 5th fastest 10,000 meter cross country times in NCAA championship history. Neither time has been matched in over three decades of NCAA cross country competition since then. After that, he finished third in the Olympic Trials 10,000 meter race in 28:10.42 to make the 1980 Olympic team (which didn’t compete in the Olympics in Moscow due to the U.S. boycott) and received one of 461 Congressional Gold Medals created especially for the spurned athletes. He broke the American indoor 5,000 meter record in February 1981 at the Millrose Games in New York (his 13:22.6 beating the old AR by nearly 20 seconds as he finished second behind Suleiman Nyambui, who broke the indoor world record with a 13:20.4). Salazar and Bill Rodgers had a legendary duel at the Gurnet Classic Beach Run in Duxbury during the 1970s. At the 1978 Falmouth Road Race after fading to 10th place, he collapsed at the finish with a temperature of 107 degrees Fahrenheit (41.7 °C) and was read his last rites prematurely.
His parents raised him in Cuba. He had two sons and one daughter with his wife Molly.
