Day 7 at Eurovets: No-shows grow in heat, long meet
The heat apparently has taken its toll on the Eurovets meet in Poland. By Day 7 — July 27 — many folks were no-shows at check-in. This isn’t unusual. At USATF masters nationals, it’s common for people to sign up for more events than they intend to contest. (Injuries and exhaustion also play a role.) Here’s the latest report from Pete Mulholland in Poznan, Poland:
It was a day of heats on the track with low hurdles, 200m and 800m taking up less time than allocated with the continuation of no-show athletes resulting in many a straight final to take place later in the proceedings.
Considered by many to be one of the finest performances of these games so far was the 20km Road Walk by Britain’s M70 Arthur Thomson, who has made a return to the sport after retiring soon after representing his country in the 1962 European Championships.
With a style of a walker many years younger, Thomson came home in 1:56:54 for an acclaimed world record and on a course that had to endure fumes from heavy traffic – plus the never ending humid conditions – pounding along on an adjacent road. The time was however, was some way adrift of a 1:53:37 recorded in March of this year.
“There weren’t sufficient judges for that performance to be recognised,” admitted Thomson.
There was an debate about the world record in the M90 javelin as Germany’s Klaus Langer went out to 23.5m
Two European records in the pole vault as M85 Emmerich Zench (AUT) and Inkeri Faelt (FIN) soared over 2.00m and 2.20m respectively.
Evaun Williams was a tad disappointed to place ‘only’ second in the W65 discus, unconcerned that the winner was Tamara Danilova, a European Champion in 1969 and an Olympic fourth placer in 1972 for the event. Here the Russian went out to 36.70m for a championship best.
