NYT obit for Martin Cruz Smith.
Mr. Smith’s initial evocation of Russia was all the more remarkable in that he had spent exactly two weeks in the Soviet Union, as a tourist, in 1973 and did not speak Russian. But he made up for it by frequenting libraries in the United States and talking to Soviet émigrés, who filled in the gaps in his knowledge. “A number of the Russians who helped me would in fact come and live with me and my family,” Mr. Smith told the reference guide Contemporary Authors in 1986.
With the character of Renko, he was also making moral and historical claims, ambitions he sometimes admitted to in interviews.
“He’s the truth-teller, the honest man in a dishonest system,” Mr. Smith said in an interview with CBS in 2009. At the same time, he discounted American fears of the Soviet Union. “It was an illusion that it was a threat to Americans,” he said. “The system was far more dangerous to its own people.”
Fauja Singh, runner. His age is unknown.
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On Oct. 13 [2011 – DB], at a meet in Toronto, he set eight world records for the 95-plus age group in events ranging from 100 meters to 5,000 meters, or 3.1 miles. Doug Smith, the co-chair of Ontario Masters Athletics, called it the “most astonishing achievement” he had ever witnessed.
“He rested between the events by sitting down and having a few sips of tea,” Mr. Smith said in an interview for this obituary in 2017. “He was actually running — both feet off the ground. He was amazing.”
Three days after the track meet, Mr. Singh performed yet another rousing feat. He became the first reputed centenarian to complete a race of 26.2 miles by finishing the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in 8 hours 25 minutes 16 seconds. His actual running time was 8:11:05, but in the throng of runners, it took him 14 minutes to reach the start.
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