Karla Del Grande grabs W55 world indoor record in 400

Karla Del Grande of Toronto had a good day Sunday. Competing at a Toronto “mini-meet,” Karla clocked a dazzling 8.57 in the 60 to set a Canadian W55 record and just miss the listed world indoor record of 8.53 by Germany’s Ingrid Meier in 2004. But in the 400, Karla really went krazy, sprinting 65.91 to take down the listed WR of 66.82 by Belgium’s Caroline Marler in 2006. (That’s roughly equivalent to 51.4 as an open mark.) Hers were among a dozen Canadian age-group records set at the Toronto Track & Field Centre.  Great job, Karla!

 
Here’s Karla during the 400 record. The gent trying to stay with her is M50 Brent Hutchinson, says Doug Smith, who took this picture.

Doug Smith, masters meister in Ontario, also reports:

The Bulletin Community Newspaper is looking for Masters athletes in downtown Toronto to profile.

I write for the Bulletin Community Newspaper.

We have a distribution of 77,600 papers.

I’m looking for one of your members with an interesting life story that I can do a profile piece on.

Here is our online link but I write for the newspaper and not the internet version.

http://www.thebulletin.ca/cbulletin/index.jsp
The area codes we are looking for are as follows: M4X M4Y M5A M5B M5C M5E M5H M5J M5K M5L M5V M5X

Kimberly Spice
Freelance Media News Journalist
kimberly.spice@yahoo.com

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February 20, 2009

6 Responses

  1. peter taylor - February 20, 2009

    Karla Del Grande has excellent form, is extremely consistent, and has been a pleasure for me to announce. Years ago she was a distance runner — the decision to drop down to the sprints was clearly the right one. I think “The Great Earl Fee” might have had something to do with that decision.

  2. Doug Smith (the Junior) - February 20, 2009

    Ken … TTFC stands for Toronto Track & Field Centre.
    Story goes that a Coach spied Karla distance training and thought she should try the Sprints. What an eye that guy had!!!
    The Great Earl turns 80 in a few days. I’ll be filling out a lot of forms this month!!
    “Masters Meister”….I like “Masters Czar” better. 🙂

  3. Ken Stone - February 20, 2009

    A Eurovet friend informs me that Caroline Marler isn’t Belgian. She’s British — and the WMA records site overseen by our Sandy Pashkin is in error.
    Ivar Söderlind, the universally respected statistician of EVAA, lists Caroline as GBR.

  4. Linda Carty - February 21, 2009

    Bravo Karla!!!
    Keep up the good work.

  5. Dorn - February 21, 2009

    It was my pleasure to compete with Karla in Spain during my first taste of World Champs. Apart from in the warmup areas my most memorable sight was of her ‘bum’ as she sprinted past me. But I have never met such a humble champion. That year she blitzed the 100/200/400 straight(all had three races) against top competition (not me!!!). She was injured in Italy and I’m so glad to see her return to top form. Good luck in the internationals. Go girl!!

  6. Karla Del Grande - February 24, 2009

    Thanks so much for these kind words! It means a lot to get recognition for doing something that I enjoy so much, from friends in our Masters track community around the world. Looking forward to seeing Peter and Linda in Maryland. Dorn, I imagine you’re staying in Australia for the World Masters Games, but hope we’ll be warming up together sometime again as we did in Spain.

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