The 2019 World Masters Athletics Championships Indoors in Toruń, Poland between 24 and 30 March was historic. Most athletes registered (4,345) for a WMA Indoor Championship; 37 World Records; amazing country, city, Local Organizing Committee, facility, officials, and volunteers. The greatest moment of the championship, and arguably any championship, was the long time official, Paula Everdell, saving an athlete’s life after they had a major health incident.

Athlete’s life saved by official

Paula, an EMT near Seattle, Washington, was officiating in the throws facility when the athlete collapsed. She immediately assessed the athlete and started chest compressions while others hailed the local EMT who was also close by. An ambulance arrived shortly afterward. After working for several minutes, the group revived the athlete. The hospital did a great job treating and caring for the athlete who went home this week. According to several, including doctors, Paula’s quick action and expertise saved the athlete’s life. Alan Bell, Director of Competition, said that Paula does so much that she would probably have won the Best Official Award anyway but saving the athlete’s life cinched it. Thank you Paula!

Medalists

William Jankovich, M85 – USA (2 gold; 3 silver; 3 bronze) led all individual medal winners. Seven individual medals were earned by Irene Obera, W85 – USA (4 gold; 3 silver) and Gloria Krug, W85 – USA (3 gold; 4 silver). Angela Copson, W70 – GBR (4 gold; 2 silver), Florence Meiler, W80 – USA (4 gold; 2 silver), Herbert E. Müller, M85 – GER (2 gold; 3 silver; 1 bronze), Viljo Hyvölä, M90 – FIN (1 gold; 4 silver; 1 bronze), Jim Blair, M85 – NZL (3 silver; 3 bronze) each won six individual medals.  Anton Laus, M85 – EST (5 gold), Neringa Jakstiene, W55 – USA (4 gold; 1 silver), Hannele Kivistö, W75 – FIN (3 gold; 1 silver; 1 bronze), Arvo Nurm, M70 – EST (1 gold; 3 silver; 1 bronze) and Tserendolgor Tumurbat, W80 – MGL (1 gold; 4 silver).

All Medalists:

[pdf-embedder url=”https://www.mastersrankings.com/nmn-wmr/wp-content/uploads/securepdfs/2019/04/2019-WMA-Indoor-Medalists.pdf” title=”2019 WMA Indoor Medalists”]

Look for a searchable / filterable medalists list here late next week.

Records (click to see all)

Fittingly, the last World Record set on the track was the W35 4 x 200m relay team from Poland including Malgorzata Gasowska (W40), Joanna Balcerzak (W45), Aneta Lemiesz (W35) and Aneta Grot (W35). Irene Obera, W85 USA, led all record setters with 4 (60m, 200m; 60mH and 4 x 200m relay). In addition to her hurdle record, Neringa Jakstiene set records in Triple and Long Jumps. All Neringa’s Triple and most of her Long Jumps were longer than her previous records! Riet Jonkers-Slegers, W75 NED, scored an amazing 4,987 points in the Pentathlon plus ran 13.17 to lower the 60mH record. Evaun Williams, W80 GBR, Maria Rosa Escribano Checa, W60 ESP, and Karla Del Grande, W65 CAN, were the other multiple record setters. Evaun, two time WMA AoY recognized thrower, reset the Weight and Javelin marks but was disappointed she did not set more records. Maria took advantage of being in a new age group. She scored over 200 points more than she had done before. Karla and Caroline Powell, GBR, ran faster than the W65 400m World Record in the preliminaries setting up for a fantastic final. Karla set the pace for most of the race on her way to lowering the pre-championship record by almost 2 seconds. For those eagle-eyed people who noticed only 36 World Records were listed as of this publishing, Irie Hill, W50 GBR, vaulted 3.51m to eclipse Brigitte van de Kamp‘s 3.31 from 2013. Click here to view full list of records set at the championships.

Results

Konrad Morawczynski on his way to a 5th place finish in the 3000mRW. Photo by Doug Shaggy Smith

Final official meet results should be available by the end of next week. In the meantime, click here to view results from the meet and click here to view results in the rankings (this page will have medal, nationality and other helpful filters by then).