Don Isett sets M75 AR, beating a Bud Held mark.
Hurdling at 80 is rare for men but almost unheard of for women. But
Irene Obera upped the age limit to 81 Saturday at North Carolina masters nationals. After stumbling in her pentathlon race Friday, she stayed clean in the open 60 hurdles Saturday to finish in 13.76 seconds and adding the indoor WR to her outdoor ones from 2014. (
Christel Donley’s silver-medal effort of 14.66 thus becomes the No. 2 mark all-time W80.)
Rob Jerome, sharing photos again, also reports that Irene extended the listed American record in the long jump but didn’t jump as far as she did in the pentathlon. Rob adds: “Great anticipation during the day for the M90 Indoor 4×200. I got a nice shot of the 4 gentlemen BEFORE they were thronged by the media after their (inaugural WR) performance” of 5:40.82. And M75
Don Isett cleared 2.91 (9-6 1/2) on his first try to better
Bud Held’s listed AR of 2.90. The listed WR is 3.00 (9-10) by Hungary’s
Zoltan Kurenczi. Finally, W65
Myrle Mensey added to her national titles with a shot mark of 9.26 meters (better than her own listed AR of 9.25) but short of a 9.48 (31-1 1/4) she had recently.
Potomac Valley TC foursome of (from left) Orville Rogers,97; Charles Boyle, 91; Roy Englert, 92; and Charles Ross, 92 — first all-90 relay team in indoor history.
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Sumi sprints 60 in an American record.
Also returning to national-class competition was Southern California’s
Sumi Onodera-Leonard, who in 2003 was in a head-on crash that left her in a coma for several days. She competed in 2012, but has been away from the track in recent years. Now at 86, she’s a sprint champion again. Her 16.06 in the 60 is the inaugural American record in that event. All photos from Winston-Salem indoor nationals here are by Rob Jerome.
Myrle steadies herself for another great shot mark.
5 Responses
More great shots by Rob Jerome! And Irene’s 60m hurdle time today showed that she could have broken 4200 points in the pentathlon yesterday but for her mishap over the first hurdle. The record wasnt entirely unexpected as she ran a 14.13 FAT race at an allcomer meet at Los Gatos last month, but Irene would be the first to acknowledge Christel Donley’s great run ithat helped to push her to the new mark.
USATF report notes several other major records:
http://www.usatf.org/News/Ninety-plus-World-Record-relay-champions-return-to.aspx
Way to go Irene? Congratulations on all your records? Really missed everyone? Flo Meiler
Flo, you were missed by everyone in the W80+ group. Get well soon, and looking forward to seeing you compete at full strength in Lyon. Irene sends you her best!
Absolutely awesome and inspiring, watching all those 90 year age group athletes compete in Winston-Salem. Bless all of them! It was a fantastic meet. (from the USA Doug Smith)
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