Leanne Buxton and Penny Butcher each brought home Pentathlon Gold Medals from the European Masters Indoor Championships held in Braga, Portugal on Sunday (27th February).
Leanne dominated the W40 event, never being headed after taking the lead in the second of the five events. An excellent 60m hurdles time of 9.28 seconds saw her score 1037 points, only 20 points behind the winner of that event. She was then added 712 points with equal first (1.44m) in the high jump to take the overall lead. A shot performance of 10.89m again beat the rest of the field to further increase her points advantage. Leanne took an unassailable lead of some 200 points over Wendy Vissner of the Nederlands by winning the long jump with 4.98m and then wrapped up the title by finishing second in the 800m in a time of 2m 39.4 seconds and a final age adjusted total 3784 points. Leanne was “very happy” to have added to her growing collection of international combined event championships medals, which now totals four gold (including a world championships) and a silver.
Penny faced a much tougher battle to win her gold medal in the W60 pentathlon, despite also winning three of her events. Fourth after the initial 60m hurdles (11.59 sec.), she snatched the lead with an outstanding 1.29m in the high jump. But there was still a long way to go. A modest shot of 7.24 m saw her drop back to 5th place, but still in contention. Another outstanding performance in the long jump (3.76m) saw her move up into second place only 24 points behind the leader. Running a steady pace in the 800m the Bedford athlete clocked 3 min 13.61 for the 800m, winning that event and sealing the gold by a margin of 233 points from Gaye Clarke of Great Britain with an overall age adjusted score of 3659 points. “Ecstatic!” was how she described her feeling after winning her first international championship.
Thanks to Dennis Johnson for the report.
