Kathleen the great

KATHLEEN STEWART SETS ONE WORLD AND TWO BRITISH MARKS ON A RECORD-BREAKING MASTERS WEEKEND.

- STEVE SMYTHE

WITH the opportunity to win European titles denied after the late cancellation of next week’s masters event in Braga, British masters were forced to make this event the highlight of their winter. They responded with a bout of notable record-breaking in a championships which turned out to be one of the best quality masters events this winter.

Though British and European athletes of the year Ian Richards, Clare Elms and Evaun Williams dominated their age groups, it was W80 Kathleen Stewart who stole the headlines with a world and two UK records.

Other records were set by M75 Peter Giles (two), M60 John Wright, M55s Don Brown and Steve Linsell and W50 Carol Parker.

Irie Hill and Mark Johnson had good world record attempts and plenty of athletes showed form that would have been more than good enough for a European title.

There were other notable middle distances doubles (or triples) for M65 Dave Wilcock, W45 Louise Rudd, M50 Mark Symes and M55 Gary Ironmonger but W70 Sally Hine was the most successful of the weekend with seven gold medals.

There were moans from some middle-distance athletes about the programme being geared for sprinters as the 800m, 1500m and 3000m all took place after all the sprinters had finished and the track’s bumpiness unsettled some of the 200m and 400m runners. There were also a few seeding problems in separating A and B finals.

Results were not available due to a broken scoreboard and there was an absence of paper results, but online they were available in record time on the Open Track system.

Some previously Braga-bound athletes chose not to compete while a few who thought this was too close to the now cancelled championships regretted not entering.

Geoff Tyler set a UK M70 discus record in the outdoor throws (see report and results on p52-53).

M35-M45