Eurovets set 20 world records at Lahti WMA championships
In 2007, Europeans set 17 world age-group records at Riccione worlds — with an attendance of about 9,000 athletes. At the 2009 Lahti world masters meet, with about 5,000 entrants, Europeans set 20 world records, according to a report from Eurovets statmeister Ivar Söderlind of Sweden. Quality AND quantity. Ivar writes: “It is remarkable that 32 of the 40 (European) records broken (were) in the age classes M/W60 and older. . . . Three athletes set up two world records in Lahti: Rolf Geese of Germany in M65 decathlon (8264 points) and 100-meter hurdles (15.47/+0.3), Holger Josefsson of Sweden in M90 800 (4.04.85) and 1500 (8.07.17) and finally Guido Müller of Germany in M70 400 (59.34) and as participant in the winning relay team 4×400 (4.17.47).”
Nadine O’Connor top 10,000 points in masters national deca
Usain Bolt, meet your master. The same day Bolt ran 9.58 in Berlin, Nadine O’Connor finished an equally incredible decathlon, totaling 10,234 points, according to early reports out of Shoreline, Washington. Of course, it helps that Nadine holds W65 age-group world records in two of the events — the 100 and pole vault. The historic total — with points assigned to her marks after age-grading — came at the USA National Masters Combined Events Championships. Results should be posted soon. Her score, I’m told, was more than 1,500 beyond what any other masters athlete has ever totaled. The women’s dec has the same events as the men’s but in different order. At one point, the women’s dec was headed for international approval, replacing the heptathlon. But I think that idea was shelved. Stay tuned for details from Shoreline.
Sandy Pashkin keeps job as WMA Records Committee chair
Contrary to my earlier speculations, Sandy Pashkin of Oregon has been retained as Records Committee chairwoman of World Masters Athletics, according to a WMA source who wished to remain anonymous. This means she’ll continue to oversee the WMA records page and review records submissions. Having lost her bid for WMA vice president-stadia, she’ll presumably have time to fix a broken records page. She can start by reviewing Olympic and IAAF world championships results for the past 10 years, or since the dawn of the Internet. Many, many marks worthy of WMA indoor and outdoor records have been overlooked. Searching this blog would also help her discover oversights. But other WR performances may have been missed here as well. Sandy also serves as USATF Masters T&F records chair, although her committee consists of herself alone.
Jamaica’s McFarlane makes IAAF Berlin 400H final at age 37
Danny McFarlane is in his own universe. Competing in the semifinals at the IAAF world championships today in Berlin, the Jamaican legend lowered his own listed M35 world record in the 400-meter hurdles to 48.49, beating his 2008 mark of 48.57. (Just kidding. Danny ran 48.30 at an obscure meet in China last year. WMA’s records are often wrong in the younger age groups.) Danny is 37, and his time today — on a track like the one we used at Lahti this month — would have taken second in the flat 400 in the M35 age group at worlds. In any case, it’s long past time for someone in World Masters Athletics to review Olympic results in recent years and update the WMA site in the 35-39 groups. In other news, fellow Jamaican Usain Bolt set an M20 world record in the 100 of 9.58. Bolt turns 35 in August 2021.
Flo Meiler conquers milestone 2-meter barrier in vault at 75
Flo Meiler in Oshkosh
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During a record attempt last month at Oshkosh nationals, Flo Meiler of Vermont fell and banged her head on the pole vault box. The gash required six staples. She recovered quickly, though, and took home a dozen medals. But would the record later prove a mental barrier? Heck no. On August 5, competing at the National Senior Games in Palo Alto, California, Flo, 75, became the oldest woman over 2 meters — clearing 2.01 (6-7) to break the listed W75 world record of 1.90 (6-2 3/4) by Leonore McDaniels at the 2003 Eugene nationals. I learned of Flo’s mark from a letter she sent my wife, who had sent her a photo CD. “Just got back from Senior Games,” Flo wrote by hand on lined paper. “Broke pole vault record. Got 3 gold, 3 silvers and 3 bronze.” On the Age-Graded Tables, Flo’s 2.01 corresponds to an Open (ages 20-30) equivalent of 5.44 (17-10 1/4). Incredible. In 2007, she set a W70 indoor WR of 2.11 (6-11), as I noted after the fact.
Tom Phillips rocks — and rolls out thousands of Lahti photos
Tom Phillips wore two hats at Lahti words — M55 sprinter and British masters track photographer. He excelled at both, winning a gold medal (as third leg of the UK team that beat the USA team in my 4×1) and building a magnificent photo archive of the WMA meet. See it here. He also wrote about his Lahti adventures here. Fellow British shooter Lesley Richardson also is posting her Lahti shots. See the first batches here.
Tom (center) battled Tom Dickson and wrote of the 200-meter final:
“The last five metres were the longest of my running career.”
Bill Collins ducking the competition? Old slur re-emerges
According to meet results from the National Senior Games in Palo Alto, all-world M55 sprinter Bill Collins ran the 100 prelims and semifinals but not the finals. He didn’t run the 200 but entered (and won) the 400. Old rival Oscar Peyton ended up winning the 1 and 2 — without Bill in the field. Curious about his dropping out of the 100, I wrote Bill, and also asked about the status of his season-long leg injury. Bill replied: “Thanks for your concern. The way the schedule was set up made it very hard to run the events 100, 200 and 400. Only 20 minutes between the 100 and 400. I had planned not to run the 200 to continue to take pressure off my leg.” I also informed Bill that M55 British sprinter and world champion Stephen Peters had recently entered the Sydney World Masters Games in October — where Collins also will compete.
More scholarly attention paid to masters runners, decline
“Masters endurance athletes are capable of remarkable athletic and physiological functional performance, thereby representing a uniquely positive example of ‘exceptional ageing,’ ” says a Journal of Physiology study that’s come my way. See it here. Of course we know the next part: “Endurance exercise performance decreases during middle-age and declines at an even more rapid rate in older age. The available data indicate that decreases in Ë™VO2 max are the most clear and consistent contributor to these declines in performance. Reductions in the lactate threshold also may contribute, whereas submaximal exercise economy is preserved with ageing in endurance athletes.” Hirofumi Tanaka and Douglas R. Seals of Texas and Colorado, respectively, conclude: “The ‘Masters athlete model’ continues to be a rich source of insight into our ability (or lack thereof) to maintain peak physical performance and physiological function with human ageing.” Hey, thanks for noticing!
Complete Lahti results are posted on mastershistory.org
Since the official Lahti results site can vanish at any time, I’ve collated the day-by-day text files, throws pentathlon results and marathon team results into a single PDF — 814 pages long. See it here. I made it searchable, so you can go straight to the name or event you’re looking for. Also, I forgot to mention earlier that every USA relay team that ran Saturday medaled. I haven’t made much of the medals table, which shows us in third behind Finland and Germany, because it’s a bogus comparison. It measures proximity to Lahti more than performance. Team USA had about 220 members, compared with close to 450 for Germany and over 1,300 for the host country. So who’d you expect would win the most medals? The marathon was heavily weighted toward Finland.
Rita Hanscom (finally!) named USATF Athlete of the Week
Rita Hanscom of San Diego was named USATF Athlete of the Week today by Indy officials — a long-overdue honor coming on the heels of her incredible five-gold performance at Lahti worlds. She should have gotten it seven days ago, but USATF named nobody for the weekly award. Cecile Nguyen wrote for USATF: “Hanscom wrapped up the championships amassing gold medals in the W55 age-division in the 300m hurdles, long jump, 80m hurdles, pole vault as well as establishing a new world record in the heptathlon. Competing in the 300m hurdles for only the second time in her career, the 55-year-old won the gold medal in 53.25 seconds. In the W55 heptathlon, Hanscom blew away the competition with a world record 6,382 points, almost 2,000 more points than the second place finisher.” Great job, Rita. Take the week off.
Rita Hanscom heads toward gold in the 300 hurdles — one of her five titles at Lahti.
