Hercules Wimbledon AC: Gold for John Webster, 82, at Surrey Masters Championships

BY TOM POLLAK

John Webster, Hercules Wimbledon Athletic Club’s oldest member, ended a 19-month absence to win gold at the Surrey Masters Championships at Kingston.

The 82-year-old won the heavy weight with a throw of 8.77m.

Webster said. “There’s an eight-metre concrete surround to the throwing circle so the challenge was to get the 5.45 kilogram weight on to the grass, which I just managed to do.”

Webster, who took up athletics at John Fisher School, Purley, under the noted coach Franz Stampfl when he was just 12, was delighted to be back competing and winning.

“I’ve managed to get a bit of training throwing the javelin in my back garden,” said Webster. “It was the first time an over 80 had thrown the heavy hammer at the Surrey Masters Championships, so I was the inaugural winner of the event for my age group. I originally planned to also throw the hammer and javelin but, because of the hot weather I decided to limit myself to one event.”

Eight Hercules Wimbledon athletes picked up nine medals.

Supervet Lisa Thomas took the women’s over-55 400m in a PB of 63.58 and the 300m hurdles in a championship record of 50.86. Her previous best 400m time was 64.8 in a Southern Women’s League match at Crawley in 2014.

She also took silver in the 800m in a PB of 2:27.32 improving on her 2:29.96 set in 2015. Other gold medallists were Malcolm Davies, who took the over-50 1,500m in 5:05.27 and Justin Reid in the over-50 5,000m in 16:58.51.

Stuart White picked up a brace of medals taking silver in the over-55 400m in 64.78 and bronze in the 200m in 28.47. He was fourth in the 100m in 13.94. John Ryan took the over-60 3,000m bronze medal.

Hercules Wimbledon had four individual winners as the parkrun 5km events resumed on Saturday.

Will Woodcock made a winning debut when he headed home a 466-strong field on Clapham Common (16:46).

Robbie Hynes headed home the 236-strong field with a winning debut at Rickmansworth in 16:51.

Supervet Justin Reid won at Bangor, Northern Ireland in 17:31, the top age-graded performance of the day and just 11 seconds slower than his best for the course. Helen Davies was the top woman finisher at Hanworth where she made winning debut in 21:56.

Teenager Hector Revill was the best of 10 Hercules Wimbledon runners on Wimbledon Common, finishing 13th of 352 runners in 19:15. Lisa Thomas was second woman in 20:36.

Rob Tuer was 22nd out of 1,056 runners in Bushy Park in 18:37. James Green was third of 92 runners in Cranleigh in 18:47.

Richard McDowell headed home the 49 runners in Veteran Athletic Club’s 5,000m track championship at Wimbledon Park in 15:34.46. He was 49 seconds clear of the second runner.

Vikki Filsell was second woman veteran over-50 in 21:21.43. There were 49 finishers.

Main Pic: Hercules Wimbledon’s Lisa Thomas and Stuart White who picked up a total of five medals at the Surrey Masters Championships