World records for Andrew Ridley and Christine Harrison-Bloomfield in Lee Valley and John Wright in Sheffield highlight another great weekend for British age-group athletes.
The eyes of most British masters were on the first ever London Masters indoor international at Lee Valley on Saturday (March 7) and apart from the world marks there were a number of British bests for multiple world champions such as Clare Elms and Peter Giles, Steve Smythe reports.
With 23 nations represented with good turn outs from France and Germany and it was probably the best quality masters non championship indoor event ever held in the UK with leading competitor Kaspars Kazemaks doing the bulk of the organisation.
Double world champion Andrew Ridley produced a stunning M60 800m.
Already the holder of the world indoor mark with 2:07.04 he took part in the main men’s 800m.
Unfortunately the clock by the track didn’t work during this event and so most in the stadium were unaware of his run as he powered through 400m in 62 seconds and held on to finish sixth in 2:05.13 to take close on two seconds off his record.
It was a time significantly faster than the outdoor world M60 mark and even the UK M55 indoor mark held by world champion Mark Symes.
Up ahead the race was won by former 1:48 man Andy Brown (2:01.18) from fellow M45 and world champion Keith Hutchinson (2:02.79).
Ridley competes in the 800m and 1500m in the upcoming European Masters Championships in Toruń and Britain could repeat the feat in last year’s outdoor championships where they topped the medal table.
Harrison-Bloomfield who ran for Britain in the 1999 World Indoor and Outdoor championships, sped to a World W55 record at 60m of 7.97.
It was initially announced as just an European record owing to some confusion over a mark recently set in America but further investigation revealed it had improved the previous mark of 8.01 set by French star Nicole Alexis set in 2015.
The Briton is confident she can run quicker in Toruń where she will also run the 200m. Here she ran 27.12 in the longer event.
Also in stunning form was multiple world and European champion John Wright who competed in Sheffield in invitation events in the combined events championships.
Wright ran a groundbreaking M65 400m mark of 55.44 which significantly improved the world indoor record from the greatest ever masters athlete Guido Mueller of Germany who ran 56.63 22 years ago.
Wright’s mark was also quicker than the outdoor record and is faster than the younger M60 UK record.
He runs the 60m, 200m and 400m in Poland.
Back in Lee Valley, Evaun Williams, Britain’s greatest ever all-round women’s thrower, bettered the listed W85 shot world record of 8.27m with a 8.56m throw and it is being put forward as a world mark.
Curiously though she has a longer mark of 8.62m ratified by both BMAF and the European Masters Association from the 2024 British Championships.
She isn’t competing in Poland and nor is Britain’s most prolific masters middle distance record breaker Clare Elms who is attending her mother’s funeral when the championships begin.
Due to family problems and illness she had only competed two previous times this indoor season but had set world records at 3000m and the mile.
A third looked unlikely as she decided not to set off for the event until she knew her son had taken off from Dubai. The flight took off five hours late in the evening but fortunately the 1500m was the final race of the day and so she could compete.
Having not slept the night before she wasn’t really expecting a record but thought there was possible improvement of her British record of 5:03.1 which was the world record until Ireland’s Anne Gilshinan had improved it to 5:02.41 and then 4:58.80 a few days earlier.
In a mixed race which led to a lot of lapping with one competitor taking over 10 minutes, she improved her British mark by three seconds but fell 0.83 of a second short of the world record with a time of 4:59.63 just behind women’s winner W40 Kiralie Leigh-Jones’ 4:59.16.
She did have the consolation as now aged 62 of being the oldest woman to ever break five minutes indoors or out.
Coincidentally Gilshinan had missed Elms’ world mile mark by less than a second on Wednesday.
Elms, who currently holds 26 different British indoor, outdoor and road bests also holds the world outdoor W60 1500m and mile marks.
Another athlete to go close to a world record was Greek M65 high jumper Georgios Farmaks who leapt 1.76m and attempted 1.82m.
Roger Bruck improved his British M85 record to 1.06m.
Peter Giles easily broke the 32 year-old UK M80 record at 3000m in 13:30.78 but felt he could have gone quicker but for fighting the effects of long covid.
The race was won by M45 Gary Crush in 9:12.66.
In the 60m hurdles there were three records in one race.
Carole Filer just missed the world W70 record but her 11.44 time was a British record and behind her W75 Emily McMahon set a British record of 12.34 to improve fellow Brit Sally Hine’s former world mark of 12.49.
She wasn’t sure at the time but it seems a good chance that the mark is also a world record improving on the 12.39 by Eliane Piret in the French Championships.
McMahon competes in the 60m, 200m, hurdles and long jump in Poland while Filer also competes in four events. Piret is also entered for the hurdles in Toruń.
Fourth in the race Tony Bowman improved his M90 mark to 18.75. The indefatigable Bowman competed in seven events.
Eleanor Gatrell won the W45 shot with a British record 12.80m.
There were British long jump records for W65 Susan Frisby (4.06m) and W70 Filer (3.54m) who looks to be coming into form for Poland after injury problems last year.
Stephen McCauley came close to the UK M50 shot record with a 15.86m throw while Allan Leiper also was not far short of the M65 record with a 13.32m throw.
The biggest clash of the meeting came in the 60 metres with Swedish multi world champion M45 Lion Martinez defeated age group world record-holder Dwain Chambers with a strong finish 6.93 to 6.97.
Other noteworthy 60m times came from M50 Joshua Wood (7.42), M55 Kevin Crane (7.60), M65 Pat Logan (8.13), former European Cup winner M70 Chris Monk (8.95), and M90 Tony Bowman (12.18) and W60 Kirstin King (8.84).
In the younger master 60m hurdles world record-holders M45 Mensah Elliott (8.18) and M55 Joe Appiah (8.50) both had impressive wins.
W65 Susan Frisby ran 10.15 while there was a close M60 race between Neil Tunstall (9.50) and meeting announcer Don Brown (9.51).
There were some non master competitors.
Senior women hurdlers Alice Barrett and Jasmine Khogali both were timed at 8.40 while 16 year-old Ekene Ogbonna ran 8.22 just behind Elliott.
M60 Andrew Pringle dominated the men’s pentathlon with a score of 3097 while W45 Leanne Buxton won a competitive women’s multi-eventer with 3726 points from W40 Naibari Rutter’s 3586.
W40 Kim Bopanna was the fastest woman at 400m with 59.60 though European medallists W50 Sarah Loades (63.42) and W60 Lisa Thomas (67.79) produced the top age-graded performances.
Multi 400m and 800m champion and W60 Virginia Mitchell (2:30.66) headed British W50 champion Lin Skinner (2:33.77) at 800m.
M35 Damaine Benjamin was the fastest at 400m with 51.44 though multi M60 relay gold medallist Wole Odele (58.36) produced the top age-graded effort at the distance.
Lisa Gawthorne won the women’s 3000m in 10:49.56.
Non-master Ranbir Singh was the quickest at 200m with 22.24 with M35 Byron Robinson (22.97) the quickest master.
Despite running in lane two M60 Vincent Elie produced the top age-graded run and his 25.79 was only half a second short of John Wright’s UK best while M80 Allan Long (32.76) and M70 Ian Broadhurst (28.10) also impressed.
W60 Kirstin King (29.97) produced the top age-graded women’s effort.
M50 British record-holder Craig Beecham was the best of the long jumpers with a 5.43m leap though Bowman improved his UK M90 best to 2.20m.
Under-17 Oliver Densley had the best mark in the Nick Phipps Next Generation Vault with 4.06m with M60 Glyn Price (3.56m) the top master.