Hercules Wimbledon AC round-up: Peter Giles shows age no barrier as he wins World Masters title

Hercules Wimbledon Athletic Club legend Peter Giles, 80, continues to show that age is no reason to hang up your running spikes or give up the ghost of beating those half or even a quarter of your age.

Giles represented Great Britain in the M80 class over 5,000m winning the World Masters title in Gothenburg, Sweden on Thursday after an epic sprint finish with 84-year old Jean-Louis Esnault.

Giles’ time of 23:58.07 – run on a hot day – saw him beat his French challenger by just more than a second, the pair only separated over the final finishing straight. It moves Giles seventh on the UK all-time list for M80s, unsurprisingly also a Hercules age-group best.

He also won gold as part of the Great Britain 4x100m quartet who clocked a speedy 1:04.98 to take the title.

Giles only started running competitively aged 44, having spent most of his life as a singer and bassist in various bands. He has since gone on to represent Great Britain Masters on multiple occasions, breaking plenty of national age group records on the way. With this his first world title it seems unlikely Giles will stop anytime soon.

Charlie Wyllie capped an outstanding 2024 track season with fifth place over 1,500m in the Scottish Athletics National Championships on Sunday.

Wyllie, who lives in Wandsworth, qualifies for Scotland through grandparents and travelled up to Grangemouth, near Falkirk, for his first senior championship hoping to mix it with the best Scotland could offer.

The country is home to the world champions over the distance for the last two years in Jake Wightman and Josh Kerr respectively and while neither were present on Sunday the event still featured a highly competitive field.

With six to qualify from each of the two heats held at midday, Wyllie negotiated a tactical race comfortably, finishing third in 4:08.14 before returning four hours later for the final.

In a much faster race Wyllie stuck to his task, running 3:52.11 to finish less than two seconds outside the medals, with last year’s champion Ben Potrykus behind him.

It marks the last track race of the season for Wyllie, with 2024 being a fantastic year in which he successfully qualified for the UK Championships, moved third on the Hercules’ all-time list (3:44.88), in the process running the fastest time in almost 30 years, with a further personal best over 3,000m (8:17.17).

A final note should go to Matt de Freitas, who continues to chip away at various V55 club records. On Saturday at the Southern Athletics League in Norman Park, Bromley, De Freitas ran 2:12.64 over 800m to take 1.5 seconds off his own record. This summer de Freitas has broken the club age group records over 800m, 1,500m and 5,000m.