World Masters Championships

Walton AC Masters Athletes had a highly successful week in Toruń, Poland last week at the World Masters Indoor Athletics Championships.

Susie McLoughlin, Virginia Mitchell and Joanna Flowers started the week with with the 400s, all qualifying comfortably for their finals. Virginia set the tone with an emphatic victory in the W55 category in 63.21, swiftly followed by an exciting race in the W50 category where Jo finished strongly coming through to take her first ever World medal in second place. Susie was next up and ran a controlled race to finish in 4th.

Next were the 800s where Liz Amos made her World Indoor Masters debut. She cruised through her heat and came a creditable 4th in the final in a scrappy race resulting in the Irish athlete falling and the Swedish athlete fracturing her shin bone.

Virginia was going for the double but had tough competition as she was up against the current W55 800m world record holder. In a thrilling final lap Virginia made up a deficit of 5 metres to win in a new world record of 2.22.34.

The penultimate day saw Susie and Jo back on track for the 200s. They both qualified for their finals comfortably with Jo running another consistent race from a difficult lane 1 and coming home in 4th. Susie lined up in lane 6 with the Polish athlete and main rival inside her. The Polish athlete proved too strong and Susie finished strongly in 2nd.

The final day saw Susie and Virginia back on track for the 4×200. More medals came their way in the form of silver and bronze.

A big congratulations to our amazing Walton AC Masters athletes. Roll on the European Championships in Italy in September.