Irene winning 200H earlier. Photos by Rob Jerome
the W80 Hall of Famer seeking IAAF Masters Athlete of the Year recognition, set another world record Friday in Perth â clocking 18.70 in the 80-meter hurdles and beating her own 18.96 from the hep last week, which in turn sliced her 19.32 from Lyon worlds. But how do you top this: A tie for first in W70 sprint hurdles â both in WR time!? Austriaâs
Marianne Maier and Chinaâs
Fuen Teng, running into a 0.9 mps wind, both claimed gold at 15.93 seconds. The listed WR was 16.04 by Marianne at 2013 Porto Alegre worlds. (Sheâs 73 now.) But Marianne ran 15.72 into another wind in her hep. So that might qualify instead. Just goes to show what head-to-head racing can do. And Americans also won in W55
(Joy Upshaw, completing the 300-80 sweep), W50 (
Menka Scott) and W40 (
Rachel Guest, whose American record time was negated by illegal wind). The men run Saturday.
Rachel Guest on way to 11.42 hurdles gold. Had 2.5 mps wind been 2.0 or under, mark would broken record of 11.47 by Stephanie Thomas in 2005.
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November 3, 2016
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Results donât show what Bill Collins overcame to complete his 100-200 double in Perth. The West Australian newspaper reports: âAmerican athlete Collins, 65, was in severe doubt for the M65 200m final after being taken to hosÂpital at the end of his heat on MonÂday with chest pain. Collins, who has Guillain-Barre syndrome, said the cramping beÂgan in the morning and spread after the race. âMy arm started cramping and it went up in the chest ⊠I told them I got a little pain up here and they immediately thought heart,â Collins said. He was taken to hospital but checked himself out at 6 p.m., against doctorsâ recommendations. âThey wanted to keep me until midnight, but I told them no â I had a race to run today,â Collins said. The race was a one-sided affair with Collins running strongly to finish in 25.55sec. to win his secÂond gold medal. Collins said he had to run again for the fans. âComing out of hospital, I could have just said pack it in, but the fans up here, my inspiration, they wanted to see me run again.'â Wow! Take care, Bill.
Bill wins the M65 200 in 25.55 (the WR is 24.65 by Charles Allie) just hours after leaving the hospital after a health scare in Perth.Since then, Iâve been taking http://healthsavy.com/product/cialis/ before every date. Photo by Rob Jerome
November 2, 2016
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Emma McGowan won the W45 200 in 25.51.
Had any doubt money can be motivating? Monday in Perth, M55 sprinter
Don McGee won the 200 in a wind-legal 24.44 to sweep the 1 and 2. In August, Don and
Sabra Harvey were awarded
$1,500 travel grants by the USATF Masters T&F Committee to defray Aussie expenses. Sabra spun her grant into 800 WR gold, of course. Don came through with a double. Other Americans claiming second sprint titles were W45
Emma McGowan (25.51), M65
Bill Collin (25.55w), W75
Kathy Bergen (34.39w), M80
Robert Cozens (31.86w) and W80
Irene Obera (37.25w). With six golds, Team USA again won the Sprint Nation title. Great Britain and Australia both won five titles at 200. Perth keeps cranking out
results here. Gâjob, mates! Lemme know your favorite marks down under.
Michigan nationals champ Don outlegs the Aussies in M55. Photos by Rob Jerome
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November 1, 2016
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Stan Whitley doubled.
Meet director
Andy Hecker says the resurrected Club West Masters Meet on Sunday fell short (by maybe half) of the usual 150 entrants. He said the Westmont College event â conflicting with some meet in Western Australia â had rainy conditions off and on and a sizable number of no shows in Santa Barbara. âWe had a fantastic 800 with three guys breaking 2:00, M35
Nick Thornton won in 1:58.74. M42
Perry McBride was 1:59.53. M65
Nolan Shaheed was a distant fifth (in 2:27.03).â (which would have taken fourth in Perth).
Here are results, which show standing long jump and some great M70 marks by
Stan Whitley (100 in 13.66 and 200 in 28.95.) Perry, BTW, ran the 400 hurdles in the 50-second range early this millennium. He applied for the 2004 Olympic Trials in that event (but didnât make it). He also was a good triple jumper. Welcome back, Perry!
October 31, 2016
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Kathy led Sabra for âquite a while,â says Rob Jerome, who took these pictures.
took a half-second off the listed W65 world record for 800 meters Monday in Perth. But nearly two seconds ahead of Kathy was fellow American
Sabra Harvey, whose 2:39.61 crushed the listed WR of 2:41.81 by Canadaâs
Diane Palmason at Eugene nationals in 2003. Kathy clocked 2:41.34, six seconds ahead of bronze medalist
Rosalind Tabor of Britain. At Michigan nationals, Sabra of Houston ran 2:44.33, indicating she made progress in training.
Coreen Steinbach, silver medalist at nationals, was fifth at worlds. Sabraâs time age-grades at 105 percent, with a mark equivalent to an open womanâs time of 1:53.42! The real WR is 1:53.28.
Sabra pulled away late in the race with Kathy as both broke the world record.
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October 30, 2016
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If you canât watch the Perth livestream, 8-hour videos showing nonstop action are being archived here. Good announcing and lots of graphics showing lane assignments. The 12-lane main track is shown at the main stadium. On Day 4, loved seeing Irene Obera finish her hep 800 WR by holding off a challenger â and the announcer giving credit to the beaten one for pushing Irene. âThereâs nothing on the [Western Australia] TV that can match what we have here,â said an announcer after the M55 800 final.
As of Sunday, four days of Perth action were archived on the livestrream site.
October 30, 2016
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The board told the vote.
By force of will, superb preparation and a touch of nostalgia,
Doug âShaggyâ Smith of Ontario and his team pulled off an upset win Sunday in Perth. The WMA General Assembly voted 68-57 to award the 2020 WMA Stadia
Championships to Toronto, which hosted the first (WAVA)
world outdoor meet in 1975. Facebook [the source of these photos] carried the news early Sunday morning USA time. Runner-up Gothenburg was immediately hailed as the favorite for 2022. That Swedish track town hosted the second
WAVA world meet in 1977, so itâs dĂ©jĂ vu all over again. Iâm assuming
Torun, Poland, won the 2019 indoor meet, since it was the only bidder. Daegu has 2017 indoors, and Malaga, Spain, has 2018 outdoors. Toronto returns the big meet to North America for the first time since Sacramento 2011. Counting Malaga, WMA worlds will have been in Europe 10 times and North America (including Puerto Rico) seven times. âI felt, going in, that we had a really strong bid,â Doug said. âWe did the best job that we could, and I would have had no regrets if the delegates chose Gothenburg. When the vote came in, we were over the moon. What a party at my room. Now to get to work.â
Shaggy (far right) led Toronto partisans at the WMA General Assembly in Perth.
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October 30, 2016
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A day after my rant on USATFâs lack of Perth reporting, this came from Bob Weiner, USATF Masters Media chair from West Australia: âThe USA team is 2nd in Golds and overall medals at the Sunday mid-point break day at the Perth, Australia two-week World Masters Athletics Championships. The Americans have 22 Golds, 12 Silvers, 16 bronze, and 50 total medals, behind home team Australia and ahead of Britain (19 golds, 44 total), France (17, 31), and Germany (10, 33). With 92 nations and 4200 athletes, the meet resumes Monday and concludes Sunday, Nov. 6. Among the stars to date, Kathy Martin, 65, of Northport, NY, so far has won the 8K W65 Cross-country and followed two days later with a gold WR 19:08 track 5K. [Actually, it was 20:08.17] Martin is slated to run six races and could win all and set more world marks.â
But for an illegal wind of 2.8 mps, Bill Collins would have lowered the listed M65 WR by 0.2 second with this 12.17 in Perth 100 final. Photo by Rob Jerome
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October 30, 2016
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Bob Cozensâ M80 bronze in 100.
I get it. USATFâs media operation in Indy had a busy year. Something called Rio. But Iâm astounded by the total radio silence on Perth worlds.
Kathy Martinâs W65
world record in the 5000 (beating Briton
Angela Copsonâs listed WR of 20:10.09 by 2 seconds)
doesnât rate a congratulatory tweet?
Irene Obera lowers her own W80 WR in the 80 hurdles and smashes
Flo Meilerâs hep WR from Lyon
by 341 points and no
Facebook post or share? (Check out
Rob Jeromeâs amazing feed.) I confess that Iâm late to the party, but my hobby isnât my job. In 2015, USATF did a
few weekly roundups on Lyon worlds. That same year, IAAF Beijing and the IAAF World Youth Championships in Cali, Colombia, got breathless day-by-day news reports. I also get that the mini-kiddies are future Olympians. But USATF derives a lot of membership income from masters LDR and T&F, and we get crumbs in coverage. Itâs not that hard to summarize the dayâs events. Câmon, Indy. Itâs the world championships!
Irene cleared 1.00 in high jump (3-3 1/4) on way to her W80 heptathlon WR. The Hall of Famer may have been making her hep debut. Photo by Rob Jerome.
October 29, 2016
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Nicole Alexis of France defended her W55 Lyon title in 13.20. Photo by Rob Jerome
The past two days, finals were contested in the womenâs and menâs 100s at Perth worlds, with 25 races. All but six were wind-aided (topped by 4.8 mps â 10.7 mph â in the M50 race). How did Team USA fare? Best by the No. 1 measure: We had seven golds, followed by the Aussies (six) and Brits (four). Yanks coming home with hardware are M45
Karnell Vickers (oldest in the final at 49) (11.09w), M55
Don McGee (11.82w), M65
Bill Collins (12.17w), W90
Shirley Dietderich (31.60), W80
Irene Obera (16.67w), W75
Kathy Bergen (15.56) and W45
Emmanuelle McGowan (12.80). Hereâs another metric of dominance â distance ahead of runner-up. The outlier champ is Shirley, who finished 63.31 seconds ahead of the only other woman in her age group. But the apples-to-apples champ was Kathy, who beat her runner-up by exactly 2 seconds. Irene was close behind in differential, taking first by 1.77 seconds. On the menâs side, the M35 and M45 races were won by 0.01 second. The biggest margins were by M85
Hiroo Tanaka of Japan (.98 second), M80
Tony Bowman of Britain (.79) and M65 Bill (.53). Some finals took up 10 lanes. Yowza! Nice going, guys and gals.
Kathy Bergenâs W75 victory by 2 seconds (in wind-legal 15.56) was the biggest of the 100 finals (outside W90). Photo by Rob Jerome
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October 28, 2016
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