Records tumble at NI champs
Championship records fell by the bucket load from the very first track event of the North Island masters athletics championships a the Massey Community Athletics Track at the weekend.
Corinne Smith (Northland) was the overall 3000m race walk winner in 15min 46sec, a new W50-54 record by 45sec.
Daphne Jones (W75, Wellington), holder of the W70 record, had to watch team-mate Jacqueline Wilson slice over 2min from that with a new record of 18min 50sec.
However, Jones had the satisfaction of taking near enough the same time off the W75 championship record, her time of 20min 33sec, also bettering the existing world record of 20:41 set by a United States athlete in 2000.
Palmerston North’s Brayden Grant ran a blistering 400 metres in 52.77sec to set a new M30-34 record.
Paul Daborn (M50, Waikatobop) had an impressive competition, setting records in the 100m, 200m, 400m, 100m hurdles and 400m hurdles events.
Manawatu-wanganui masters member Laurie Malcomson lowered his own M65 record in the 300m hurdles to 51.24sec and took 3sec off the 100m hurdles record.
Wellington’s Jim Blair (M85) was in great form, establishing new records for triple jump, javelin and the multi-event throws pentathlon.
Hector Mein of Mt Maunganui, at 86 years old, was the oldest competitor. He lost his triple jump record to Blair, however set a new long jump record of 2.27m.
In the sprint events, Northland’s Ugen Iyer (W30) won the 60m sprint in a North Island and New Zealand record time of 8.41 sec, just ahead of Manawatu’s Vanessa Story (M40 winner).
Story just edged Iyer in the 100m.
Jill Hayman (W55) from Auckland set championship records in the 60m and 100m.
Trevor Guptill (M70, Auckland) set New Zealand and championship records for the 60m (8.83sec) and 100m (14.39sec), and would have had a record in the 200m but the wind reading got up to high to deny a valid record.
One spectator, upon watching the speed and agility of this 70 year old (14.4sec for the 100m) wanted to know if his birth certificate had been verified by the organisers.
In the field, Manawatu’s Callum Mcconachy (M30) was in recordbreaking form in the hammer, shot put, discus and throws pentathlon.
Another Manawatu-wanganui masters member, 71-year-old Philip (Bo) Cox gained records for 7.26kg weight throw and the throws pentathlon.
The best age-factor-adjusted performances across the three days of competition came from Chris Waring (W70) with 96.9 per cent in the 60m.
Best of the men were, Laurie Malcomson (M65) with 93.4 per cent and Trevor Guptill (M70), 93.3 per cent, also in the 60m sprint.