On the eve of the USATF masters nationals in North Carolina, the latest count is 10 Olympians entered, but the Eurovets meet in Poland can boast the oldest Olympian — 97-year-old Alfred Proksch of Austria, who tied for sixth in the pole vault at the Berlin Olympics of 1936! Pete Mulholland reports more world records from the 15th European Veterans Athletic Championships — and the fact that the EVAA has narrowly voted to retain “Veterans” in its name, rather than join the trend of groups to adopt “Masters.”

Here’s the latest report from Pete:
Throwers take centre stage with four world records plus, despite the heat, there’s one for a 1500 runner.
Most of the throws take place on a dust-bowl of a field adjacent to the main stadium. There’s a hammer/discus cage plus a brace of all-weather javelin run ups. But it’s a bit scary as there in not a lot a room for manoeuvre.
It was the female javelin exponents at the upper end of the age scale that supplied three of the world records with the ‘baby’ of the trio being Britain’s W65 Evaun Williams.
Having already collected gold in the shot plus silver in both weight and discus, Williams approached the event in her normal laid back style to arrow out to a CBP of 36.03 (118-2) on her opening effort. Closing down on the world record 36.79(120-8) held by Gertrude Schonauer (AUT) with a second round 36.50 (119-9), Williams well and truly laid the record to rest with her third round throw of 38.07 (124-10).
Lithuania enjoyed rare success as W70 Birute Kalediene made her fourth – and final – throw one to remember as it soared up and away to a world record breaking 30.54 (100-2) to remove Germany’s Sigrin Kofink San Sebastian effort of 28.89 (94-10) from the books.
After four relatively modest throws ranging between 21.28(69-9 3/4) and 21.62 (70-11 1/4) Belgium’s W75 Rachel Hanssen – a W70 European winner four years previously — caught it just right with 23.84 (78-2 3/4) as she bettered Hannah Gelbricht’s (GER) mark of 23.02 (75-6 1/4) set in these championships 15 years ago.
It was left to Poland’s Jerzy Krawczyk to improve on the current M85 hammer mark of 28.01 (91-10) held by Anton Tesija (AUS) with his third round effort of 28.16 (9205), which also ended a 21-year reign for a European record of 27.30 (89-7). Krawczyk went out even further as the ball hit the dust at 28.77 (91-1).
It was a rare moment at these championships to witness a world record on the track and it was close at that as W75 Doris Dalgaard of Denmark clocked 6:41.15 – faster than the winning W70 time – to shave less than one second from the previous mark of 6:42.13 held by Russia’s Nina Naumenko.
I met up today with Alfred Proksch, a 97-year-old Austrian who is the oldest competitor on show and was, not surprisingly, untroubled in winning the M95 shot, discus and weight.
What makes Alfred all the more remarkable is that in the Berlin 1936 Olympics’ pole vault he placed equal sixth – with 11 others! – with a clearance of 4.00 (13-1 1/2). The meeting with Alfred was akin to opening a history book!
With a manner and a stance that belies his advanced age, Alfred is arguably one of the finest advertisements for masters athletics.
For proof, here’s Alfred with one of his many admirers! (Photo by Pete Mulholland)