Few compete at Chinese masters nationals
China has, what, 1.3 billion people? Must be tough to hold a masters nationals. Five hundred heats of the 100? But no, they're not that into geezertrack. Not yet at least. My academic superstar friend Professor Thierry Boucquey at Scripps College (at California's Claremont University) is just back from competing at the Chinese nationals -- and conducting research on the sport. He returned with some hardware, too.
Thierry writes:
Extensive data analysis will have to be done, though, before I write the report (on masters track in China), so it probably won't be ready before October.
I can tell you that I interviewed and polled 160 Chinese Masters in five cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Jinan, and Dongying. I met with probably double that. I trained at excellent university facilities in all of these cities.
All had an all-weather tartan suface. Additionally, the infield of every track was convered by first rate artificial turf, which was nearly as soft as grass, and a pleasure to run on. Everywhere, people were exceedingly friendly and quite frankly very surprised to be the subject of a foreign researcher's study.
The questionnaire contained 55 questions. It was translated into Chinese, then, once filled out, retranslated into English.
As for the China Masters Championship competition, held in Dongying in Shangdong Province on June 4 and 5, there were about 600 athletes and great competition. I have not found out yet where final results may be posted (of course, that would be in Chinese characters only). I did win the 100m and 200m in the M50-54 category, with a 12.23 in the 100. The 200 results were not yet posted on the stadium bulletin board before I had to leave town.
I was also able to obtain a 2005 championship program, publications that appear to be former Chinese Masters national records tables (although they stipulate thet national records can only be broken at national competitions), etc.
As promised I will send you my full report once it is published.
When he ships it to me, I'll share it with y'all.