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Penn State Track Legend and Olympic Champion Horace Ashenfelter Dies at 94

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Horace Ashenfelter III, a legendary Penn State track and field athlete who won a gold medal in a stunning upset at the 1952 Olympics, died on Saturday in West Orange, N.J. He was 94.

A three-time All-American at Penn State from 1947 to 1949, he won an NCAA 2-mile championship in 1949. Ashenfelter graduated with a bachelor’s degree in physical education that same year.

“We all carry heavy hearts with the passing of Horace Ashenfelter,” said Penn State track and field head coach John Gondak in a statement. “He was an amazing person that I was honored to have visited with a handful of times during my years at Penn State. The number of alumni who have reached out to us about his passing shows how important an individual he was to our team, our sport and our university.’ 

At the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, Finland, Ashenfelter, then an FBI agent, surpassed heavily-favored Soviet runner Vladimir Kazantsev in the final lap, claiming the gold medal and setting a world record with a time of 8:45.4. Entering the competition, with the U.S. and Soviet Union in the midst of the Cold War,  Ashenfelter had run the steeplechase only six times while Kazantsev was the unofficial world-record holder.

Ashenfelter remains the only American to hold the world record in the event.

That year, Ashenfelter received the Sullivan Award as the United States’ outstanding amateur athlete and represented the U.S. again at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. He was inducted into the the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1975 and Penn State named its multi-sport facility the Horace Ashenfelter III Indoor Track’ in 2001.

Born in Phoenixville, Pa., on Jan. 23, 1923, he competed on the football, basketball, baseball and track teams at Collegeville High School before graduating 1941. He joined the Army Air Corps in 1942 and was a pilot and stateside gunnery instructor, according to the New York Times.

He competed as a runner nationally and internationally from the late 1940s until 1957, winning 17 national indoor and outdoor titles. After graduating from Penn State, he ran for the New York Athletic Club, winning 15 gold medals in Amateur Athletic Union competitions.

After his FBI career, Ashenfelter moved to sales before retiring in 1993. He remained an active runner in the Glen Ridge, N.J. area where he lived.

“Horace will be dearly missed and remembered every day as our team practices and competes in the facility that bears his name,” Gondak said. “Penn State is honored to have the name of one of the greatest amateur athletes of the 20th century linked to our primary facility.”

Ashenfelter is survived by his wife, Lillian, four sons, 12 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. His grandson William Ashenfelter is currently a sophomore middle distance runner for Penn State.