Irene with Bryan Mayberry, M50, who won both 800 and 1500 races and is ranked nationally in both events.
Obera Does It Again at the 8th Annual Pride Meet!
Pride Track and Field Meet, San Francisco, CA
June 20, 2015
Track and field’s octogenarian superstar, Irene Obera (W81, Fremont, CA), followed up a record-breaking 2014 season with yet another impressive performance in this year’s Pride Meet – which returned to San Francisco State’s Cox Stadium four years after it relocated to Chabot College in Hayward, CA.
Irene ran the 80m hurdles in 19.34, which tops her own W80-84 World Record of 19.77 set in Winston-Salem, NC last year at the US Master’s Championships. She followed up this incredible run with a US-list-topping 17.63 in the 100m.
Although Irene ended up not running the 400m at the Pride Meet, she has her sights set on taking down the existing W80 world record of 1:31.21 set by Emma Mazzenga (Italy) in 2013. Says Obera, “Records are just made to be broken so I wouldn’t mind breaking all of them! I’m still dabbling in a wide range of track and field events, including the long and high jump and the multis, but the one world record I would like to break this year is the W80 400m mark held by an Italian runner [Emma Mazzenga] that is just 2 seconds off my best.”
In addition to Irene’s (pending) World Master’s Record and chart-topping 100m, 8 athletes posted US Master’s List-leading marks for 2015 – including Joy Upshaw (W54) in both the 200m (17.63) and 300m hurdles (50.60), Dimitry Yakoushkin (M38) in the 110m HH (15.95), Larry Barnum (M71) in the 400m (1:04.43), and Ruth Rainero (W60) in the 1500m (6:19.81).
A competitive 5000m race led to three US Master’s List-leading marks: Stella Gibbs (W56) in the 5000m (20:23.76), Lynne Hurrell (W80) in the 5000m (27:29.24), and Mike Holland (M66) in the 5000m (19:58.50).
Other notable performances include Pride Meet records by Thomas Setser (M35) in the 1500m (4:41.28), Rod Jett (M48) in the 110m Hurdles (14.95), Eric Surprenant (M25) in the 400m Hurdles (54.44), Daniel Lloyd (M61) in the Shot Put (13.63m), Kris Paaso (W44) in the 800m (2:17.78), Nicole Campbell (W33) in the 1500m (4:56.89), and Katherine Chang (W24) in the Pole Vault (3.35m). Laura Rau (W30) had an incredible debut in posting Meet Records in both the 100m Hurdles (15.89) and Long Jump (6.03m).