Masters Track News and Muse

Merlene Ottey crushes W45 sprint record in comeback

Thanks to the Track & Field News message board, my main source for masters news, we learn that Merlene Ottey at age 46 has run the 100 in 11.94 seconds -- into a nearly 8 mph headwind! Her stunning time, easily a W45 world record, is equivalent to an open mark of 10.658 seconds. An 11.94 would nearly have qualified for the M45 final at San Sebastian worlds. And she becomes the oldest female sprinter to crack 12 seconds -- a time that most masters men would be thrilled to achieve.

Here's the story should the link go bye-bye:

Veteran Ottey claims comeback win

Sprinter Merlene Ottey aims to run at August's European Championships after making a winning return to the track at Spain's Rivas International.

The 46-year-old, who has not competed since the 200m semi-final at the Athens Olympics, battled a strong headwind to win the 100m in 11.94 seconds.

"It was slow so forget the time," said Jamaican-born Ottey, who now represents Slovenia. "But the legs feel fine.

"If I'm running well in July then I'd like to go to Gothenburg."

Ottey has never won an Olympic gold despite collecting eight medals from the Games, the first - a bronze - coming in 1980 in Moscow.

I actually did stop competing but decided I didn't like sitting at home

Her run in Athens was ended by a hamstring injury, which almost led her to quit.

"After I was injured at the Olympics, I wanted to stop," she said.

"I actually did stop competing but decided I didn't like sitting at home, so I decided to get the required surgery and just started training again."

Ottey has also won 14 World Championship medals, including two 200m golds, and became the oldest track and field athlete to win an Olympic medal when she won silver in the 4x100m relay in Sydney.

A positive drug test for nandrolone almost ended the former Jamaica athlete's career in July 1999.

Ottey subsequently missed the World Championships in Seville that year, but later took legal action and won her case on technicalities.

Further, Bob Ramsak reported:

Running against a 3.5 m/s headwind, Ottey, who celebrated her 46th birthday last month, won the 100 meters in 11.94 at the Rivas International Athletics Meeting near Madrid. It was the celebrated sprinter’s first race since the Olympic 200 meter semi-finals on August 24, 2004, where she suffered a hamstring injury.

“Well it was a very slow time,” Ottey said in an interview published on the European Athletics Association’s website, seemingly unimpressed with a performance that shaved more than 3/10s of a second from the world masters record for the age category, 12.25 by Germany’s Karin von Riewal. “Let’s forget about the time. I wish the wind had been behind me rather than in front of me, it was hard, it was difficult but the legs feel fine.”

Ottey, who has amassed a phenomenal 34 medals at major international competitions for her native Jamaica in a career which spans more than two-and-a-half decades, has lived in the small central European nation since 1999 and has represented Slovenia since 2002.

Ottey said she nearly retired after her injury in Athens, but reconsidered when the competitive juices starting to flow again.

“I didn’t like sitting at home so I decided to get the required surgery and just started training again.” She underwent surgery last year to reconnect a tendon to a bone. “They had to put three screws in it to reattach it but now it’s okay,” she said.

Posted by kenstone at June 9, 2006 9:13 AM