On Tuesday on the World Indoor Masters Championships in Torun, Poland, David Carr, a 90-year-old Australian masters runner pulled off the comeback of the 12 months (perhaps century) as he chases down Japan’s Hiroo Tanaka, 92, within the males’s M90+ 400m. It is a 400m race for the ages, and a lesson in going out too arduous.
Tanaka will get out to a fast begin, passing via 200m at 40.64 seconds (3:20/km tempo)–a exceptional tempo for a 90-year-old. He appears to have a six- to seven-second lead on Carr as he takes his closing lap. With 100 metres to go, Tanaka hits a lactic wall, and his tempo dies off, however a surging Carr catches him on the end to safe world M90+ 400m indoor gold in 1:42.02.
The M90+ 200m document holder, Tanaka, was on world-record tempo via 200m however couldn’t maintain the velocity on the ultimate lap, closing in 61 seconds to complete second in 1:42.92. The M90+ 400m world document is held by Canada’s Earl Charge, 94, which he set on the 2019 North, Central American and Caribbean Masters Athletics Championships (NACAC) in Toronto when he ran 1:29.15.
Charge was purported to contest Tanaka and Carr for the M90+ indoor medals in Torun, however he was listed as a didn’t begin (DNS).
To place their time in perspective, each Carr and Tanaka averaged a velocity of 14 km/h for the complete race as ninety-year-olds. These two are among the world’s finest masters runners, boasting over ten world age-group observe information between them.
Final summer season, Carr turned 90 and instantly broke 5 M90+ world information on the observe. He ran a 1,500m race in 7:32.95, a 3,000m in 16:20.96, a 5,000m in 29:47.83, a ten,000m in 62:48.93 and a 2,000m steeplechase in 12:50.46. His age-graded 1,500m time works out to three:16.00, 10 seconds quicker than the present 1,500m world document is 3:26.00.
These masters runners are in a league of their very own.
