British Masters Indoor Athletics Championships
Lee Valley Stadium, London
Saturday 12th & Sunday 13th March 2016
The BMAF Indoor and Winter Throws Championships is the culmination of the domestic indoor season for many athletes over the age of 35. This year 582 competitors made their way to Lee Valley for the championships, among them Kingston’s Darren Gibson and John Twiddle. In previous years the March weather has made things difficult for the competitors who have had to deal with cold weather and even snow showers, however the weekend was blessed with warm spring sunshine.
John Twiddle’s first event was the M45 discus on day one of the competition. Having had a disappointing but safe throw in the first round, John closed in on the leader Darran Askew of Doncaster with a 33m throw in round two. Darran widened the gap again in the 3rd round with a 35m effort, then in the fourth and final round John closed slightly with his best throw of 33.32m but had to settle for the silver medal.
Early morning mists on day, two cleared for the hammer throwers. John’s event was first in the circle at 10am and again he took a silver medal throwing the 16lb hammer out to 39.32m a little way behind Mark Wiseman’s 43m effort.
Darren Gibson took to the circle around noon in the M55 6kg event as part of a competitive field of 8 athletes. Darrens first round throw sailed out over 40m to put the pressure on the rest of the field. In later rounds Bob Broadbridge (Newbury) and Chris Privett (Belgrave) managed throws of 44 and 43m respectively but Darren held on to the bronze medal with his best throw of 41.00m.
At the same time in the indoor throwing area, John took part in the shot put, managing a very consistent series with 5 attempts of 11.85m or better. The best of these came in the 5th round with a 12.12m effort. However, this was only good enough for the bronze medal behind last year’s World Masters Championships silver medallist Mark Wiseman (13.55m) and Gintas Degutis (Lithuania) who threw an impressive championship record of 15.43m.
The final event of the day for John was the 35lb weight throw, where his 10.44m throw was enough to take gold in a small field.
The athletics season will now move outdoors with the next event for the pair being Kingston’s open meeting on the 10th of April.
