Sixteen gold medals for Albany Athletics Club at successful Masters WA Track and Field Championships

Albany Athletics Club competed strongly at this year’s Masters Athletics WA Track and Field State Championships in Perth on February 27 to March 13.

The 10 members, from Albany, Denmark, Walpole and Katanning, were awarded an impressive total of 16 gold, seven silver and five bronze medals across 14 nominated track and field events.

The team recorded several personal bests and season bests were achieved.

It was the greatest number of athletes representing Albany at the State championships event, bigger than the team from the strong regional club Bunbury.

Brenda Painter dominated the 75-79 age group, coming home with seven gold and two silver medals.

Newcomer to athletics, Crystal Bairstow, competed solidly across all her sprint and middle-distance track events in the 40-44 age group with four gold medals.

Highlights from the championships event included athlete Matt Hutton running a very slick 17min. 4.36sec. in the 5000m event, leading from start to finish to secure gold.

Callum Dowell also ran strongly in the 800m event with a time of 1:57.45.

He was challenged with 200m to go and had to lift to see off the second-place competitor.

In the 1500m event Dowell broke the race apart quickly and led from start to finish in an impressive 4:11.67.

Andrew Collins made significant progress in the 1500m event, reducing his time across the athletics season by 45 seconds.

He ran an exceptional 4:47.11 to claim silver for his 50-54 age group, just two seconds adrift of the winner.