World Masters Athletics Championships

4-16 August 2015 - Lyon, France

With 587 GB athletes registered and over 8000 in total from across 114 countries, the 2015 World Championships was set to be one of the biggest in the history of masters athletics. Four different stadiums were used to cope with the sheer volume of age categories per event which went up in 5 year increments from 35-39 right up to 95-99. The weather was a big issue throughout the Championships with anything from 25-41c in the shade whilst the track temperature peaked at a brutal 51c! Some athletes said the track actually started to bubble in the sheer heat!

Making the trip across the channel to represent their country Belgrave athletes Zoe Doyle, Monique Krefting, Vilma Thompson, Maureen Noel and Mike Trees where determined to do their very best. Maureen kept herself very busy burning thousands of calories in the W50 10k race walk placing 12th clocking 62:56, going 1 better in the 20k race walk finishing 11th in 2:08.35 and if that wasn't enough racing she then ran the marathon on the final day in 3:44.59 placing a fantastic 7th!

Vilma Thompson showed the strength and depth that Belgrave has in the throwing events doing both the individual Shot Put placing 5th with 9.59m and clocking up 3488 points in the Throws Pentathlon for another solid 5th place in the W60.

Back on the track Zoe Doyle put in a brilliant performance in the W35 1500m. Coasting through the heats in 3rd despite a blistering track temperature of 45c+ to contend with, she then fought hard in the final, sitting in 4th place until the final 200m where she pushed hard to move into silver medal position, only to fall within 30m of the finish line. She recovered to still clock 4:48.11 and claim a fantastic 4th spot behind her GB team mates Joanne Locker & Racheal Burns.

Monique Krefting rounded off a great season for herself by competing in the Heptathlon amassing a stunning 5733 points to win the W45 category and have her name in the history books as W45 2015 World Masters Heptathlon Champion!

On the men's side Mike Trees doubled up running the 5000m first in 16:15.01 on the day where it was hitting 51c track temperature, then 5 days later he coasted through the 1500m heats in 4:26.56 before winding it up in the final clocking 4:17.0 and securing the bronze medal.

Notable GB performances came in the Men's & Women's 40+ 800/1500m where the double Gold was pulled off by both Louise Rudd and former Olympian Anthony Whiteman who at 43 years old is still consistently running 1:48's for 800m! In the blistering heat they both clocked 2:15.69/4:36.70 and 1:51.01/4:00.97 respectively to win their 800/1500m finals.

The real stand out theme in the championships was the astonishing standard of athletes up in the higher end age bands. They never got the memo for taking things easy in the so called ‘retirement age’ with a handful of 60+ and 70+ athletes actually producing results that would be right up there with club athletes in their 20’s and 30’s. 95 year old Triple Jumpers, 80 year old Decathlon competitors, 75 year old Sprint Hurdlers. The list goes on....

The 100m races drew a huge crowd, especially the 80 and over runners. The M80 final actually false started putting paid to any thoughts of reaction times slowing down with age. Once they got going the winner clocked a storming 14.98 seconds! Even the women’s 80-84 race was won in just 17.57 seconds!

One of the biggest crowd pleasers came from the Men’s 90+ 100m races. The 90-94 was almost a photo finish with just 0.13 between all 3 medallists with the winner clocking a mind boggling 19.76, while the 95+ race had GB’s oldest competitor (Charles Eugster) at 96 years old winning in 23.50. Yes you did read that right. These are the times that people as old as 98 are running!

In the end GB & NI ended the championships 3rd on the medal table behind Germany and hosts France with 60 Gold, 49 Silver and 55 Bronze. Massive congratulations to the Belgrave athletes who performed at an exceptional level in one of the biggest masters athletics events in history.