Warrington Athletics Club masters athlete's stunning week

The masters athlete and retired firefighter travelled to Denmark to compete in the World Firefighters Games – and he may have set off airport alarms on his return due to the amount of medals he brought home!

Gill dominated the over 65s age group to win a staggering seven gold medals and one silver over four days of running events on both the track and the road.

He started off last Monday by claiming over 65s gold in the 10,000m by clocking 42mins 46.46secs and three hours later, he switched into sprint mode and won 200m silver in 32.00secs.

The following day saw two more golds in the 400m (78.96secs) and the 1,500m (5mins 57.64secs) while he went one better on Wednesday by picking up a trio of age-group wins in the 800m (2mins 48.27secs), the 5,000m (20mins 57.62secs) and the 100m (16.02secs).

Gill had time to squeeze in one more over 65s gold medal by clocking 21mins 5secs to finish seventh overall in the men’s 5km road race but upon his return to the UK, he decided against putting his feet up.

Instead, he travelled to Birmingham on Saturday to compete in the British Masters Pentathlon Championships where, naturally, he picked up yet another medal.

A total of 1,796 points across the five events – long jump (2.60m), javelin (16.82m), 200m (35.63secs), discus (19.14m) and 1,500m (5mins 41.38secs) – saw him earn the silver medal in his age group to cap off an incredible week.

Dave Gill, right, with his British Masters Pentathlon Championship silver medal (Image: Contributed) Gill was not the only Warrington Athletics Club member to have been competing abroad this week.

Indeed, second-claim member Georgina Walker travelled all the way to Australia to compete in the Sydney Marathon on Sunday.

Walker, who competes primarily for Lymm Runners, completed the race in 3hours 45mins 20secs, which placed her 1,151st out of 6,503 female runners and 173rd in the 45-49 years age group out of 731.

Georgina Walker outside the Sydney Opera House having completed the Sydney Marathon (Image: Contributed)

Closer to home, some of the club’s younger members took part in the rearranged English National Cross Country Championships on Saturday, which had been postponed in February due to poor weather.

Imogen Wharton ran excellent to finish eighth in the under 17s women’s race, completing the 5km course in 19mins 20secs. Clubmates Hannah Hull (48th, 21mins 54secs) and Eleanor Grace (63rd, 23mins 4secs) were close behind.

The 3km under 13s races saw Oliver Davenport (11mins 26secs) finish 23rd in the boys’ race and Eva Hayes (14mins 28secs) finish 155th in the girls’ outing.

Meanwhile, there was an age group victory for masters athlete Steve Watmough in the Lake Vyrnmy half-marathon on Sunday.

Watmough finished the race in 1hour 17mins 46secs, which saw him win the over 60s age group and finish 17th overall.

Rounding off this week’s action is Jessica Treagust, who was the only Warrington AC member taking part in Sunday’s Blackpool Open Meeting.

She came away with new personal bests in both the 600m (2mins 29.6secs, 6th place) and the long jump (2.94m, 4th place) in the under 11s age group, taking more than two seconds and 30 centimetres respectively off her previous bests.