Asia Veterans' Championships

The championships begin tomorrow night in Taipei. We have 71 on the team this year. It should be fun.

Bill Purves

71? Congratulations you have a big team! Look forwards to your updates.

Beat Bill to post the good news for day 1. Hong Kong pocketed 3 medals (1st to 8th) today. Mark Reeves got a silver in M50 800m with 2.19 and 3rd in M50 5,000m with 17.49, and Yiu Hon Ki was 5th in M60 800m with 3.06. While you think Mark's time of 17.49 in 5,000m is fast for a 50+ old men, the winner from Kazakhstan is 15:51!

Those who are interested to know how our guys/gals doing in the next few days, please visit: http://master2012.taipei.gov.tw/en/

Forgot to check women, we had a gold in W50 100m by Tse Wah Sau in 14.55!

Sorry I wasn't able to post every day.

We eventually came away with 22 medals, 5 better than our haul in Kuala Lumpur two years ago, and indeed our best total ever. It included 4 gold, 9 silver and 9 bronze. As is usual for HK, the women did better than the men, 15 medals to 7, and 3 golds to one.

The star of the show was Catherine Kwan who won the W50 racewalk in a new meet record of 31:26.37 for 5000m. In doing so she led a Hong Kong sweep, with Foris Chan taking the silver and Moon Choi the bronze.

Our other gold medalists were racewalkers Sahn Hahng Tai Bo in the M65s and Billie Kwok in the W35s and, as Keith has mentioned, Cecilia Tse in the 100m. That was our first ever medal in the sprints.

Mark Reeves too deserves a special mention. He had tough competition from the Japanese and the Kazahks, but he brought home silver medals in the 800 and 1500 and a bronze in the 5000.

Later in the meet Danielle Wu took silver in the 5000 and came back with bronze in the walk. Foris, by contrast, backed up her racewalking silver with a 5000 bronze. Rebecca Lau failed to get a walk medal this time, but brought home silvers in the 1500 and the 5000.

One reason for our success was our largest team ever for a track meet. We had 73 who, when they weren’t racing or off sightseeing, made up an excited cheering section which kept the athletes motivated. The weather was good, the meet ran on time, and a very good time was had by all.

To see how you would have done, go to

http://master2012.taipei.gov.tw/en/gameResult.asp

and click on your age group.

Bill Purves

Hi Bill, It's good that people can know it's not only marathons that can do if they want to race overseas!

The racewalking rankings have now been updated with the Taipei results. Just punch the "rankings" button at the top of the page.

Bill Purves