WORLD RECORD FOR LENORE MONTGOMERY

The Greyhounds Masters Club hosted our first-ever BC Athletics-sanctioned Track meet. Due to Covid- 19, we were restricted to a maximum of 50 people, including athletes and officials, inside the track and field facility. The meet was held at Bear Creek Park in Surrey under smoky conditions due to the smoke travelling north from the many forest fires in the western states of America. Despite the smoke, our athletes ran very well. In fact there was more smoke coming from the heels of our members.

The Greyhounds members broke 9 BC Masters records, 5 Canadian Masters records and Lenore Montgomery (above right) who recently entered the W90 age group, set a new world record in the 1500m (12:34.67). She also set a new Canadian record in the 800m (6:13.82). Two race walkers broke Canadian records. Dmitry Babenko, a new member of the Greyhounds, broke the Canadian record in the M45 Mile race walk with a time of 7:01.70. He easily broke the old Canadian record (7:48.7) by a huge margin of 47 seconds. Renate Cheetham broke the W80 Mile race walk record of 12:41.83 with a new record of 12:26.55. The fifth Canadian record was broken by Deborah Lee in the W70 80m hurdles. Despite re- aggravating an injury during the long jump at the Greyhounds Throws and Jumps meet last weekend, Deborah broke Ex-Greyhounds member Christa Bortignon's record of 20.20 seconds with a new record of 18.15 seconds.

Breaking BC Masters records were: Cindy O'Brien Hugh broke the W60 80m hurdles record of 15.91 seconds with an outstanding time of 15.21 seconds. Laurie Ritchie despite being at the end of her age group, broke the W55 300m hurdles record by a whopping 9 seconds. Laurie broke the old record of 1:16.56 by running the race in 1:07.61. And next year when Laurie enters the W60 age group, she will be going over 27 inch hurdles instead of 30 inch hurdles. Mark Stewart broke one of the oldest BC Masters records. Mark broke the M75 800m record of 2:52.66 which had stood since 1989, by running an excellent time of 2:50.50. This was Mark's fourth BC Masters record this year. At the BC Masters Indoor Championships in Kamloops, Mark broke the BC Indoor 800m, 1500m and 3000m records. Elaine Whidden broke one BC Masters record and just missed another. Elaine broke the W65 100m record of 15.80 seconds with a new record of 15.59 seconds. She missed breaking the W65 200m record by 0.01 second.

There were many other outstanding performances by our Greyhounds members. A few of them were: New member Piara Bhullar who turns 75 next year, pushed Mark to his 800m record and also ran a fast 1500m race. Carol Montgomery (above left), another new member, ran two great races in the W55 800m and 1500m. It definitely helps to have Lenore's DNA. And yet another new member, Derek Prevost ran two great races in the M55 100m and 200m. Marvin Johnson remains the fastest Greyhound with the fastest time in the 50m, 100m and 200m. Tom Dickson continues to be one of the fastest runners in the world for his age group (now 67). Brian Carnate impressed everyone with his comeback from two knee surgeries, by running extremely well in the 50m and 100m. Pete Pretorius ran well, especially in the 100m hurdles. When he turns 55 next year, he has an excellent chance to break the BC hurdles record. And the iron woman award definitely goes to Sheila Allison who competed in 6 races: 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m. Arthur Gee tried to keep pace with Sheila by also starting 6 races (and finished 5 races after falling in the 80m hurdles. The purple heart award goes to Halimah Beaulieu who sprinted hard for 399 metres of her 400m race and fell across the finish line. But because she was in lane 1, she went under the line of sight of the camera so her time unfortunately could not be recorded.

Congratulations to every Greyhounds member.

The Greyhounds definitely thank all of the officials and volunteers who helped to make our first-ever BC Athletics-sanctioned Track Meet a great success.