Who the heck is George Zimmerman witness Jane Surdyka? Witness who says she would have been Olympic marathoner?

Is she lying? wrote:

Holy crap! I never imagined this could get so ugly. They interviewed several people including the state attorney. I'm sure if the prosecution has been contacted then the defense has been contacted. I wonder if they will call her back to the stand just to ask a couple questions about her background to damage her credibility. The prosecutor really opened a can of worms by asking completely irrelevant questions about her background.

Holy crap! and it's all down to you. Identify yourself and you could have your 15 minutes of fame.

mwsss wrote:

No Drsssh you are missing the point. She WAS qualified for the first Olympic Marathon Trials for the 84 team.

I'm looking at the official 1984 OMT qualifiers list for women, all 267 of those pioneers, I don't see her name.

village surgeon wrote:

This is like Elizabeth Warren (Senator-MA) claiming to be a Native-American for her entire academic career. Ultimately, it turned out to be a flat-out lie though she derived years of preference/advantage/credibility (and now she's a Senator!).

Massachusetts champagne-socialist eat this kind of behaviour up.

You have been brainwashed by listening to too much of Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh. Elizabeth Warren is 1/32 Cherokee on her mother's side and a smaller fraction Delaware on her father's side. For reference, the chief of the Cherokee nation is also 1/32 Cherokee.

Warren has Indian ancestry. She did not use it to get into Harvard or advance her academic career.

But the avalanche of propaganda from the right wing noise machine has duped the low information rubes into believing lies.

Their title says 132nd, not 1/32nd, so that's a misleading title.

The title in the link, that is.

The URL was likely generated by a software based on the article title, and it should be obvious why the the slash was omitted.

She was dang fast. Sad that she decided to lie about being even better.

Reminds me of this guy:

http://blog.thephoenix.com/BLOGS/phlog/archive/2011/07/29/meet-the-mayor-reggie-lewis-track-amp-athletic-center.aspx

In turn, a 10.7 in the 100 meters is also dang fast. It is not, however, even remotely close to Olympian or Olympic-caliber. She has clearly told this lie so many times through the years that she forgot "people would be listening" this time.[quote]knox harrington wrote:

She was dang fast. Sad that she decided to lie about being even better.

she just got Kipped by the letsrun sleuths!

Pretty sad in this case because it sounds like she had enough real accomplishments that she didn't need to make stuff up.

BPC31 wrote:

The cut-to-the-chase on Ms. Surdyka is that she is a LIAR. No other conclusion can be arrived at when it comes to her self-professed athletic resume. For whatever it's worth, I believe that Zimmerman broke the law that night by disobeying a directive from law enforcement not to follow Trayvon Martin. I believe he should be held accountable for the horrible conclusion that was put in motion by HIS actions, exclusively. But I KNOW that the prosecution did itself no favors by calling Surdyka to the stand and asking a question that they should have vetted her on - and receiving an outright lie as the response. A lie which calls her character, much less her memory, into question.

The big question I have Brian is why even present the issue unless there was an attempt to build the witness' credibility up due to her "Olympic" background. Since that is likely the case, and it appears the issue has been recognized to some degree, it makes sense that she be called back to answer some questions herself pending how important her testimony is deemed.

I also agree about those who present themselves, as was done in this case, as Olympian. She was a pretty decent runner in the first place and there was absolutely no reason to falsify her background to make her appear better than she already was.

It does seem as though the prosceution is trying to sabotage their own case? Racit prosecutors? Hoping to make sure Zimmerman gets off?

Isn't it time for an inspirational Lynn Petronella poem? Why won't Joan Benoit just admit that she would be nothing without Lynn Petronella?

Jayne was the fastest female road racer in central Florida in the late 70's early 80's; she may have run as fast as 2:40. I was surprised to see her as a witness and more surprised to see my name come up mentioning her in a 87 newspaper article.

a sample of her famous poem that is featured somewhere on the Statue of Liberty web site-

I can not seem to locate it on the SofL site but I'm sure someone with better research skills can find this featured poem.

a quote from the article "Miss Petronella traversed and ran the country in all states getting

hundreds of thousands of people into running and training for the l980 Olympic Games hoping for a birth on a team." Please note the birth/berth reference gets picked up later in the wikiarticle

the lady in the night

She stands all alone in the darkness of night

Through rain, wind and snow a remarkable sight

On a river that separates city from nation

A statuesque queen a European creation

A crown on her head with a torch gold and bright

Giving strangers from each nation new hope and delight

She stands for the freedom , truth promise and more

Of America the beautiful she's the opening door

The tattered and torn have all called on her name

Traveled thousands of miles before her they came

Each with their vision and dream to fulfill

Each with persistence and a God given will

She's watched as they came in day and in night

In peace and in war time what a magnificent sight!

She's protected the shores of each native and more

Given hope to the stranger, and help to the poor.

She's been the mother, the queen the woman of all

Standing stately and beautiful, her watch is God's call.

It' a woman you see God has put in this place

Canada1978 wrote:

Isn't it time for an inspirational Lynn Petronella poem? Why won't Joan Benoit just admit that she would be nothing without Lynn Petronella?

Brian Wave wrote: The big question I have Brian is why even present the issue unless there was an attempt to build the witness' credibility up due to her "Olympic" background. Since that is likely the case, and it appears the issue has been recognized to some degree, it makes sense that she be called back to answer some questions herself pending how important her testimony is deemed.

I also agree about those who present themselves, as was done in this case, as Olympian. She was a pretty decent runner in the first place and there was absolutely no reason to falsify her background to make her appear better than she already was.

Precisely! It was an ill-advised, obviously never-vetted attempt to enhance her stock, but what it did, instead, was to make her look like a shameless liar -- even with respect to something as easily verified as her claims of Olympian status as an athlete.

With a brother who spent five years as an Assistant US Attorney in NOLA, even I know that you never - NEVER - ask a question of a witness that you don't already know the answer to. And yet, the prosecution did. Incredibly sloppy, incredibly injudicious (much less on something so irrelevant) and the only saving grace for the state is that the jurors are sequestered, not checking facts like this online. Of course, believing in sequestration adherence in the Information Age may be tantamount to believing that OJ actually WAS innocent. Only time will tell.

John Boyle wrote:Jayne was the fastest female road racer in central Florida in the late 70's early 80's; she may have run as fast as 2:40. I was surprised to see her as a witness and more surprised to see my name come up mentioning her in a 87 newspaper article.

John, as a man with such an extensive history directing and chronicling races, you know well the importance of accuracy in reporting. Hyperbole has no place in legitimate, quantifiable, documented athletic performance. Her best recorded time (researched for me by a friend who writes for Track and Field Magazine online) is that 2:47:57 in London (The Women's International Marathon) in 1980.

Is that a "good" time? Indeed. In fact, it would have been (had she done it within the required preceding time frame) "good enough" to qualify her for the first women's Olympic Marathon Trials in 1980 and do so with a more than three-minute cushion.

What it would NOT have done was come close to earning a berth on an Olympic team. She knows this, she should have been honest about it, and she HAD to know that such gross exaggeration was going to come back to bite her. She has earned it, since she co-opted a title that is truly revered among those who love sport: Olympian.

Not only was she not an Olympian (top three: as she claimed she would have been), but she was also not the proverbial "near miss": an alternate. Contrast Surdyka's inflated sense of self with a name you know well: Lisa Rainsberger.

THREE TIMES this woman was the US Olympic alternate in the marathon, but you will not find the term "Olympian" on her own webpage bio:

Honesty IS the best policy, and one can only hope that Jayne Surdyka's being publicly outed will prompt her to remember that in the future.

BTW, Kurt Thomas was a 1976 Olympian in gymnastics and won the 1979 World Championships in All-Around. Since he chose not to participate in the '80 Trials, however, (the boycott had been declared by President Carter, so Kurt protested by not going to Trials) he has NEVER claimed to be a two-time Olympian. Would he have been? Almost indisputable, but he WASN'T. If he "does the right thing" in recounting his own remarkable career in sport, then expecting someone like Jayne (who never came close to what she so boldly claimed) to also "do the right thing" is not too much to ask.

Yes, I do take this subject very personally. Above and beyond my wife, I simply know too many people who were profoundly affected by that boycott, and watching yet another "sorta somebody" usurp what they didn't earn is crap.

Has anyone ever seen this woman in a room with Lynn Petronella?

There was no Olympic Marathon for women in 1980. The longest running event was the 1500m.

Lynn Petronella's best time (run in 1978) would have made her the 205th fastest woman in 1980. Hardly in the running for an Olympic medal (if there had been an Olympic marathon for women in 1980).

Ms. Petronella,we are still waiting for answers to reasonable questions posed on this website in 2007.

Canada1978 wrote:Has anyone ever seen this woman in a room with Lynn Petronella?

There was no Olympic Marathon for women in 1980. The longest running event was the 1500m.

Lynn Petronella's best time (run in 1978) would have made her the 205th fastest woman in 1980. Hardly in the running for an Olympic medal (if there had been an Olympic marathon for women in 1980).

Ms. Petronella,we are still waiting for answers to reasonable questions posed on this website in 2007.

LOL! Thanks for that measure of needed levity!