A world report held by a legendary Canadian runner for nearly 30 years was toppled on a observe in Italy on Friday, as Britain’s Paul Forbes ran 2:13.74 within the 800m on the European Masters Athletics Championships for a brand new outside world’s greatest within the M65 division.
Forbes shaved simply greater than half a second off the longstanding report time of two:14:33 set by Toronto’s Earl Charge in Buffalo in 1995. Together with his efficiency in Italy, the 67-year-old Forbes additionally sliced 0.93 seconds off his personal British M65 800m report, which he set final yr on the World Masters Athletics Outside Championships in Tampere, Finland.
As he did in Tampere, Forbes topped the rostrum in each the M65 800m and 1,500m occasions in Pescara, Italy, working the latter in 4:44:40 on Sept. 23. That effort was solely 5 seconds off the 4:39.15 British M65 outside 1500m report he set at a meet in Glasgow in July.
The European Masters Athletic Championships, which ran from Sept. 21 to Oct. 1, featured hundreds of athletes from throughout the continent.
Though Charge’s 800m decades-long report has fallen, the celebrated Canadian runner’s identify nonetheless options prominently within the record of world masters information. Charge, who’s initially from Saskatchewan, nonetheless holds the 800m world masters information within the M70 (2:20.52) and the M90 (3:42.52) age teams. In response to the newest record of information revealed from World Masters Athletics, the Canadian nonetheless holds practically a dozen indoor and outside masters world information in occasions starting from the 200m hurdles to the mile.
In 2019, Charge broke his sixtieth world report by working 1:29.15 within the M90 400m, a feat he completed in oppressive 33 C warmth on the North, Central American and Caribbean Masters Athletics (NCCMA) meet at Toronto’s Varsity Stadium. That very same yr, Charge and fellow Canadian runner Karla Del Grande have been named the general Athletes of the Yr by the NCCMA.
Charge was inducted into the Canadian Masters Affiliation Corridor of Fame in 2009. The affiliation’s award for the Canadian Masters Athlete of the Yr in observe is known as in his honour.
