INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana — Team USATF continued their fruitful trip to Tampere, Finland for the World Masters Athletics Championships Tampere 2022, as they won six more medals including three golds on day seven, ballooning the medal count to 98. Highlighting day seven was a pair of pole vault golds by Matti Kilpelainen (M75) and Wendell Beck (M60). Kilpelainen kicked off the day by soaring over 2.80m to win the competition handily over Leonardo Pedro Salvarrey Saravia of Uruguay who cleared 2.40m. Beck topped the podium with another pole vault gold, clearing 3.55m. Team USATF’s third and final gold of the day came in the long jump as Lee Adkins (M45) leaped 6.58m on his very first jump, winning an extremely close final where the top 3 were separated by only .01m. Malta’s Rachid Chouhal and Jamaica’s James Beckford were second and third, both jumping 6.57m to round out the podium. Finally, in the grueling 20k road race walk, conducted in a steady rain, Kathy Frable (W75) smashed the existing American age group record* by more than four minutes with a time of 2:45.07 while winning the silver medal. The old record was set 35 years ago in 1987. After seven days of competition, Team USATF sits at third on the medal table behind host country Finland and Germany. The team looks to add to their impressive total as competition continues through July 10.
*Pending verification A full list of results can be found here. Join the conversation with USATF on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook using the hashtag #USATF.