British Masters Athletic Federation Championships
Birmingham – Saturday/Sunday 24th & 25th June
The British Masters Athletics Federation Championships were held in Birmingham over the weekend of 24th & 25th of June and two of Kingston’s master’s athlete’s Darren Gibson and John Twiddle carried the colours of both Kingston upon Hull AC and Northern Masters AC at the championship meeting.
Darren Gibson took part in a quality (V55) hammer competition with World Masters champion Phil Spivey leading the way where Darren finished in a creditable 4th place with his season’s best effort of 40.63.metres. His next event was the 13.84 kilogram (25lbs) weight throw where he lay in 4th place through to the last round before unleashing his three turn throw, hurling the weight out to a new PB of 13.80 metres 33 centimetres past his old best to take the bronze medal.
John Twiddle’s weekend started on the Saturday with the discus and in a close competition in the (V45) age group, he was in 2nd up to the fifth round where an effort of 34.27 metres took him past Perris Wilkins’ 34.11 metres and into first place and a final round effort of 34.45 metres secured him the gold medal.
As all throwers know 9:30 in the morning is too early for anything except a leisurely full English breakfast, this however was the start time for Sunday’s men’s hammer competition where 11 times Welsh senior champion Graham Holder provided stiff opposition. The competition went with the bookies prediction, a gold medal for Graham and the silver to John Twiddle with a way-too-early-for-all-this throw of 38.41 metres.
Moving on rapidly to the shot putt at 10:30 a 5th round throw of 11.52 metres secured the gold medal for John and set a bench mark for the loudest throw of the day.
Finally the 35lbs (15.88 kilogram) weight throw extracted the last reserves of energy from John’s legs and he struggled to a throw of 10.34 metres which was sufficient to secure the silver medal.
