A reminder of the European Masters Athletics Championships in Madeira 2025. Steve Smythe was present in Madeira, both as a competitor and as chronicler. Here is the sixth of his reports from the Championships, a chance to look back at some highlights. These words have also been published in Athletics Weekly. BMAF is grateful for the chance to repeat them here
Britain masters strike gold in the long jump, 5000m and walks and weight pentathlon
On a slightly less busy day six of competition at the European Masters in Madeira, British masters athletes fought hard to stay top of the medal table before a full rest day on Tuesday.
Britain now have 66 golds, 52 silver and 38 bronze compared to Germany’s 64 golds, 56 silver and 50 bronze so GB top the table though Germany have won 14 more overall medals.
France (44, 35, 40) Spain (35, 42, 35) and Italy (30, 27, 21) complete the top five.
There were golds for Neil Barton and Joe Appiah at long jump, Chris Upson, Paul Mingay and Colin Spivey at 5000m and 10km walker Ian Richards and the W55 walks team while Evaun Williams W85 gold in a late finishing Weight Pentathlon with athletes having to compete in two different venues.
Williams, Britain’s most ever prolific medalist in the throws, and winner of various masters athletes of the year awards, not only won in her age group but easily beat all the 10 athletes in the younger W80 age group.
She threw 28.56m in the hammer, 7.98m in the shot, 19.44 m in the discus, 17.43m in the javelin and 9.82m in the weight.
That gave her a total of 4514 points compared to the next best in her age group of 2852 while the best W80 scored 3413.
Williams had earlier taken golds in the individual javelin, weight, hammer, shot and discus so this was her sixth title won in Madeira.
Neil Barton, who won the M35 long jump gold in 2019, this time won the M45 title.
Starting with a no jump before a second round 6.14m put him in into the top three.
His big jump came in round four as a 6.31/-0.7 gave him a narrow win.
Second went to Italian Taras Stremtz who jumped 6.29m but had four other 6.20m plus jumps including a final round 6.27m.
M50 100m hurdles champion Joe Appiah, a former overall male AW master athlete of year, added a second title as he impressively won his title as he goes into a new age group (M55) later in month.
Appiah opened with a 6.05m which he repeated in round three.
That still led until the final round when Basilio Rodriguez jumped 6.09m to overhaul the Brit.
However, Appiah is one of Britain’s greatest masters competitors and he responded with a 6.14/-0.7 to regain gold medal position.
John Munroe finished fourth in the M55 long jump with a 5.55m leap.
[Editor’s Note] The images in this Gallery are of Joe in his other role of qualified starter. No licnsed event can go ahead without officials, and whilst many of our athletes carry out both roles, shortage of officials is a common theme at many events. Many Thanks to Joe for his efforts
The men’s 5000m races were held a day after the women’s curiously giving the men an extra day to recover from the cross-country and 1500m races and again they scheduled the younger athletes at the much earlier times before the heat got worse through the day.
Chris Upson, who won gold at 10,000m and silver at cross-country added a 5000m title in an exciting
M60 race.
The European Masters Indoor 3000m champion is often an uncompromising front runner but here he sat at the back of the pack and occasionally looked to be drifting five metres off the back down the back straight.
But he was running smart and apart from getting protection from the wind he was easily able to take drinks which those in the middle of the pack were unable to.
He moved up to kick through the bell but lost the lead to a strong back straight kick by France’s Alain Durand who had been third in the 1500m here.
But Upson closed on the final bend before decisively kicking to victory in 17:26.83 to Durand’s 17:28.43.
Mark Cursons was sixth (17:44.53) one place up on Phil Parry (18:02.79) who fell heavily early on and could never quite get into contact with the lead pack.
Britain also won gold in the next final due to a runaway win by M65 Paul Mingay.
The World Masters half-marathon champion who is now 68 ,but set a British M60 marathon record of 2:47:40 in 2019, when he also won the European Masters half-marathon title, ran 18:13.35.
That gave him a near 15 second win over France’s Dominique Delbe (18:28.00).
Malcolm Eustace, runner up in the cross-country, finished fourth here in 19:01.13.
Britain’s third gold in the event came in the M90 race as Colin Spivey, already a gold medallist in the 400m and 1500m, won his age-group unopposed in 32:11.27 by finishing eighth overall out of 11 in the M80 plus race.
Fundamentally a park runner – he has run 32 times at Huddersfield this year, is now 91 years-old and apart from a handful of races has never competed outside his regular 9am Saturday local parkrun.
There were also medals in many of the younger age groups in the 12.5 lap races.
Carl Hardman finished second in the M40 5000m in 15:13.18 in a race won by Spain’s Saul Santana in 15:02.42.
The Salford Harrier had been fourth in Sunday’s 8km cross-country and third here went to his clubmate Bruno Lima who was running for Portugal.
That second position was matched by M45 Damian Nevins.
The Swedish-based Harrow AC athlete who was fourth here in the steeplechase had his greatest race to date as his 15:53.07 was 21 seconds up on third and close behind Portugal’s Jorge Varela who ran 15:49.43.
The next age group race also saw a UK silver medal run.
M50 Tony O’Brien, a former senior international (with a 14:01.86 PB) and the reigning European masters indoor 3000m champion, ran a fine tactical race.
A fast last lap kick saw Spain’s Viktor Martinez, who had won silver at 1500m, kick away with a 16:02.56 effort as O’Brien who is also a professional coach, finishing strongly for second in 16:06.64.
He also goes into a new age group and runs for England as a M55 in next month’s masters international cross-country.
Gareth Raven, a 2:18:49 marathoner in his debut in 2004, advanced from fifth in the cross-country to finish fourth here in 16:12.99 and Chris Blackburn was sixth in 16:22.93.
The next final saw Andrew Taplin produce a gutsy last lap kick to snatch a M55 bronze after being some way back on the medallists at one point and his 17:05.82 left him only a second down on the winner Miguel Rubio of Spain (17:04.52).
The 1980 Olympic 50km walker Ian Richards won the M75 10km walk title in 62:54 ahead of team-mate Peter Boszko (63:40) and with the pair moving down age-groups, Britain finished fourth in the M65 team.
Italy’s Edoardo Alfieri won the M65 plus race in 55:24.
Portugal’s João Viera (45:59) won the M35 plus race.
In the women’s walk, there were individual silver medals for W65 Susan Payne (64:29) and for W70 Diane Brian (64:33) and bronze for W55 Melanie Peddle (58:38) and W60 Maureen Noel (66:06).
Britain’s W55 team of Peddle, team manager Wendy Kane (62:40) and Payne won team gold from France by just six seconds.
The W35 team of Carolyn Derbyshire(61:59) Aleksandra Majewska-Ani (64:17) and Brian picked up silvers.
The overall women’s race was headed by Italian W45 Rosetta La Delfa in 50:01.
Steve Linsell finished fifth in the M60 high jump with a 1.50m leap.
In the 200m heats M70 Steve Peters and M65 John Wright started their 200m campaigns.
Peters (26.49) was fastest qualifier for the final by over a second while Wright (26.58) was also fastest for the semis.
W55 100m champion Christine Harrison-Bloomfield was fastest qualifier for the semis by a second with 27.62.
Pics include
Joe Appiah winning and officiating
GB women’s walks team
Neil Barton
Paul Mingay in 5000m
Evaun Williams
Chris Upson in 5000m