Some fine performances from Tipperary athletes at World Masters Indoors

The World Masters Indoor Athletics Championships 2023 were held recently in Torun Poland.
The largest ever Irish Masters team comprising of 135 athletes travelled to Torun in Poland for the World Masters Indoor Athletics Championships. It was the ninth world masters indoor championships to be held with athletes ranging in age from 35 to 84 competing.

The Irish team were very successful winning a total of 75 medals which comprised of 28 Gold, 23 Silver and 24 Bronze.
Ireland finished 7th in the medals table with Poland topping the table on 202 medals and Germany 2nd and the USA in 3rd place. A total of 88 countries had athletes at the event.

Tipperary were not without their participants bringing home two world medals which is a fantastic result for the County. John Dwyer of Templemore AC was in tremendous form winning silver in the Men’s 35 Hammer. His final throw of 54.50 metres was his best throw and this secured him his place on the medals podium with Mohammed Omar of the United Arab Emirates winning the gold with a best throw of 56.25 and Adam Grudzien of Poland in third place with a distance of 52.77 metres.

Bernadette Spillane of Moyne AC was in flying form as part of the Irish team competing in the 4 X 200 W40 metre relay. The Irish team ran a super fast time of 1:50.65 to secure the bronze medal behind Great Britan & Northern Ireland in second place in a time of 1:49.94 and the United States winning in a time of 1:48.40. Bernadette was accompanied by Snezana Bechtina, Kathryan McDevitt and Sinead Oregan who made up the other members of the Irish team.

Hazel Galloway of Clonmel AC competed in both the W65 60 metres and 200 metres. Hazel ran very fast times in both events to finish 4th in her heats in a time of 10.21 seconds for the 60 metres and 36.00 seconds in the 200 metres.

John Laste also of Clonmel AC gave a very credible performance in the M60 10K walk finishing in 16th place in the excellent time of 1 hour 1 minute and 26 seconds.