Great Britain team enjoys success in 800m events at World Masters Champs in France

As World Masters Championships action continued in Lyon, the British team enjoyed particular success in 800m and 100m events.

M40 world record-holder Anthony Whiteman won by over five seconds in 1:51.01 and equally convincing was M50 record-holder David Heath, who won by three seconds in 2:01.93. Heath runs at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing in the M50 race.

Winston Laing retained his M70 title but only by 0.09 of a second – it was only his second competition since winning the title in Brazil two years ago.

Louise Rudd, who normally specialises at 1500m, won the W40 800m in 2:15.69.

Ros Tabor won the W65 800m in her fastest time for nine years with 2:49.21 as she outsprinted Japan’s Komae Kyotani.

There was an Irish one-two in the W35 800m with Kelly Neely winning in 2:10.04 from Denise Toner.

Mark Wiseman won the M45 discus with 49.80m to win by just over a metre.

The earlier 100m also saw plenty of British success.

Nengi Ossai won M40 100m gold into a 2.8m/s headwind in 10.98.

Another clear winner was M70 Glyn Sutton who sped to a 12.99 European best in his heat and then matched that in the final as he won by a clear two metres.

Stephen Peters also won a British gold but Finland s Harri Huotari thought he had won and wildly celebrated but the photo finish showed Peters had won it as both timed 12.11.

Charles Eugster predictably won M95 gold in 23.50.

Britain had three of the first four in the M45 event but American Reggie Pendland found a 11.24 enough to edge Jason Carty and Darren Scott as 0.03 of a second covered the trio.

In earlier action over 5000m, Ben Reynolds won the M50 title in 15:47.07 with Guy Bracken edging Ireland s cross-country winner Michael Traynor for silver.

Angela Copson was inevitably the other British winner and she did just enough to win W65 gold in 21:51.98 for her second gold of the week.

Other British gold winners have included M55 decathlete Allan Leiper who won with 7223 points, W45 pole vaulter Irie Hill, who vaulted 3.60m, and W45 heptathlete Monique Krefting who scored 5753 points.

In the 5000m walk, Colin Turner won the M70 gold in 28:45.79 while Ian Richards dominated the M65 race with a time of 25:03.76.

Further updates will be posted on athleticsweekly.com while the next edition of Athletics Weekly magazine will include reports, pictures and results

A round-up of the first few days of action can be found here

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