The Ageing Runner – Part 2 Sprinters

If you missed part 1 you can find it here

This series grew out of my attempts to write about Sports Psychology because it’s a topic which dominated my reading for a couple of decades. I wanted to impart the wisdom I’d learned along the way, but it’s a big topic ranging across all sorts of areas such as goal-setting, attributions, mental skills, relaxation and learning among many more; so being unsure of how to start writing it, I did the obvious thing and gave up for the time being!

During my research however, I looked up Dr Steve Peters to sharpen up on the details of his work. He’s famous for writing The Chimp Paradox; a best seller that brings together many of the ideas and methods he used while working as a sports psychologist for Great Britain Cycling to support their successful Olympic programme of the past two decades. Given his association with the cycling programme I was surprised to find out he’s been a highly successful Masters athlete in sprinting, to the extent that he won multiple gold medals at the World Masters Championships in the M50, M55 and M60 categories between 2005 and 2015.

On the UK Athletics’ website, The Power of 10, there are records of his performances in the 100, 200 and 400 since 1996 when he was age forty-three up to pre-pandemic. It makes for interesting viewing to see the decline, or should I say lack of decline in his sprinting over that period. Even in his late sixties, he’s still running under 13s for 100m, under 26s for 200m and breaking a minute for 400m. There’s been a noticeable decline in the last couple of years which is more likely due to lack of competition or injury than age itself.

Would you have thought those times were possible for someone who was never an elite sprinter in the first place? At fifty I can’t even run the times he’s achieving in his late sixties. Not because it’s necessarily beyond me but because I’ve never trained specifically for them. How you train is a bigger determinant of your performance than your age.

Steve Peters is the World Champion for his age group, so he is obviously something of an outlier, but there are many former Olympians who are no longer competing who could be faster. Steve isn’t even the world record holder in his age categories. Below are tables of the age-graded world records for both men and women, updated in June 2022.

Age group world records for 100m

	Time	Male	Date		Time	Female	Date
World Record	9.58	Usain Bolt	16-Aug-09		10.49	Florence Griffith Joyner	16-Jul-88
V35	9.87	Justin Gatlin	30-Jun-19		10.74	Merlene Ottey	07-Sep-96
V40	9.93	Kim Collins	29-May-16		11.09	Merlene Ottey	03-Aug-04
V45	10.72	Willie Gault	24-Jun-06		11.34	Merlene Ottey	12-Aug-06
V50	10.88	Willie Gault	07-May-11		11.67	Merlene Ottey	13-Jul-10
V55	11.3	Willie Gault	07-May-16		12.24	Julie Brims	13-Feb-21
V60	11.7	Ronald Taylor	04-Jun-94		13.63	Karla Del Grande	18-Jul-14
V65	12.31	Damien Leake	16-Jun-18		13.91	Karla Del Grande	11-Aug-18
V70	12.77	Bobby Whilden	06-Oct-05		14.73	Ingrid Meier	30-Jun-17
V75	13.25	Kenton Brown	03-Oct-20		15.03	Carol LaFayette-Boyd	04-Aug-18
V80	14.35	Payton Jordan	10-May-97		16.26	Kathy Bergen	06-Jun-21
V85	15.08	Hiroo Tanaka	25-Jun-17		18.49	Christa Bortignon	07-May-22
V90	16.86	Hiroo Tanaka	01-May-21		23.15	Mitsu Morita	06-Oct-13
V95	20.41	Frederico Fischer	30-Jun-12		30.16	Elena Pagu	28-Aug-21

Age group world records for 200m

	Time	Male	Date		Time	Female	Date
World Record	19.19	Usain Bolt	20-Aug-09		21.34	Florence Griffith Joyner	29-Sep-88
V35	20.11	Linford Christie	25-Jun-95		21.93	Merlene Ottey	25-Aug-95
V40	20.64	Troy Douglas	09-Aug-03		22.72	Merlene Ottey	23-Aug-04
V45	21.8	Willie Gault	26-Apr-08		23.82	Merlene Ottey	27-Aug-06
V50	22.44	Willie Gault	07-May-11		24.33	Merlene Ottey	18-Jul-10
V55	23.24	Willie Gault	07-May-16		25.07	Julie Brims	07-Mar-21
V60	24.00	Ronald Taylor	10-Jun-94		28.11	Karla Del Grande	22-Oct-13
V65	24.65	Charles Allie	26-Jul-13		28.53	Karla Del Grande	05-Aug-18
V70	25.75	Charles Allie	21-Jun-18		31.3	Ingrid Meier	02-Jul-17
V75	27.73	Robert Lida	05-Aug-12		31.56	Carol LaFayette-Boyd	09-Sep-18
V80	29.54	Hijiya Hisamitsu	16-Sep-12		35.34	Kathy Bergen	06-Jun-21
V85	31.69	Hijiya Hisamitsu	17-Sep-16		41.58	Emiko Saito	12-Nov-17
V90	36.02	Hiroo Tanaka	23-May-21		55.62	Mitsu Morita	30-Jun-13
V95	48.69	Friederich Ernst Mahlo	10-Sep-07		1:12.99	Diane Friedman	22-Jul-17

Age group world records for 400m

	Time	Male	Date		Time	Female	Date
World Record	43.03	Wayde van Niekerk	14-Aug-16		47.60	Marita Koch	06-Oct-85
V35	44.54	Chris Brown	30-May-15		49.46	Allyson Felix	06-Aug-21
V40	47.81	Enrico Saraceni	25-Jul-04		52.50	Geisa Aparecida Coutinho	09-Apr-21
V45	49.09	Allen Woodard	18-Mar-17		56.14	Angee Henry-Nott	23-Jul-21
V50	50.51	Juan Luis Lopez Anaya	16-Jul-21		57.66	Marie Lande Mathieu	14-Sep-07
V55	52.24	Charles Allie	12-Jul-03		59.36	Julie Brims	23-Jan-21
V60	53.88	Ralph Romain	22-Jul-95		1:04.3	Caroline Powell	12-Aug-15
V65	56.09	Charles Allie	18-May-13		1:08.0	Karla Del Grande	12-Jul-19
V70	57.26	Charles Allie	11-Sep-18		1:11.8	Barbara Blurton	10-Dec-20
V75	1:02.4	Guido Müller	28-Jun-14		1:19.5	Christa Bortignon	22-Aug-13
V80	1:10.0	Hisamitsu Hijiya	09-Sep-12		1:29.8	Rietje Dijkman	09-Sep-19
V85	1:17.1	Earl Fee	12-Jul-14		1:41.6	Emiko Saito	29-Apr-17
V90	1:29.2	Earl Fee	19-Jul-19		2:16.2	Melitta Czerwenka-Nagel	14-Sep-20
V95	2:21.8	Orville Rogers	12-Jul-13		3:21.0	Diane Friedman	27-Jul-19

It’s my guess that most runners, male or female, can’t even run the times being set by the 80-year-old women; let alone run close to the times for their own age or gender. It’s only when these runners get into their eighties that the times begin to noticeably degrade and I suspect this is as much down to circumstance, as it is ageing. There are fewer of these runners competing and most of them probably took it up later in life.

Lots of facts and figures so far but here’s a chance to enjoy watching M70 Charles Allie in action over 200m.

You can read Part 3 by clicking here