Ottey lowers own W45 record in Euro 100 prelims
Mainstream media are noticing that Merlene Ottey is, like, old. But still hyperfast. The Associated Press reports from the European Championships in Goteborg, Sweden: ” Injuries might be able to slow down Merlene Ottey. Age certainly hasn’t seemed to have much affect. Making her European Championship debut at 46, Ottey appeared to have finally shaken off a string of health problems to equal her own 100-metre masters record. Born in Jamaica but now running for Slovenia, Ottey ran a season-best 11.41 seconds in her heat Tuesday to finish third and improve her previous over-45 record. No other women in that age group has ever run under 12 seconds.”
By comparison, here are results from the W45 100 at the European Masters Championships:
Event 3 W45 100 Meter Dash
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Name Year Team Finals Wind Points
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Finals
1 45018 Barilly, Nicole W46 France 12.73 1.1
2 45040 Kauerhof, Petra W46 Germany 13.22 1.1
3 45061 Dunn, Wendy W46 Great Britain 13.33 1.1
4 45100 Roggeband, Hermine W47 Netherlands 13.38 1.1
5 45120 Vives, Loles W48 Spain 13.44 1.1
6 45034 Heidrich, Brigitte W45 Germany 13.47 1.1
7 45068 Hopkins, Lesley An W45 Great Britain 13.91 1.1
8 45070 Kelly, Angela W45 Great Britain 14.37 1.1
And here are the M45 results:
Event 12 M45 100 Meter Dash
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Name Year Team Finals Wind
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Finals
1 45640 Logan, Patrick M45 Great Britain 11.50 1.9
2 45677 Antonaci, Fernando M47 Italy 11.75 1.9
3 45692 Tortu, Salvino M46 Italy 11.81 1.9
4 45508 Jacobs, Dirk M47 Belgium 11.86 1.9
5 45637 Knowles, Phil M46 Great Britain 12.18 1.9
6 45652 Scott, Francis M48 Great Britain 12.22 1.9
7 45584 Konopka, Matthias M48 Germany 12.38 1.9
Merlene could have won M45!
And other masters-age athletes are competing in Sweden.
See this thread on the T&FN Message Board.
One Response
Can’t wait to see how fast she runs tomorrow; lower it further I hope. Any slower then 11.37 will not make the final. Imagine she ran a PR at age 27 and almost 20 years later may be within a 1/2 second of it! That would be like a 45-46 year old male runner @ 10.42 about 3 tenths better then what Gault ran.
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