Records for Clare Elms, Sarah Roberts, Peter Giles, Robert Stevenson, Anthony Roker and 4x800m relay team.

Clare Elms continued her record-breaking summer when she set an European and British masters W60 record at Battersea on Wednesday night.

Competing in the Veterans AC Championships, she was the fastest woman overall over the three races as she took 30 seconds off of the time of Fiona Matheson at Greenock in 2021.

Having already broken world masters W60 records at 1500m and mile and the 4x800m relay as well as British bests at 3000m, 5000m and 5km this summer she turned her attention to the 25 lap event for the first time in six years

A little short of endurance training after focusing on shorter events - she had only missed her UK record at 800m by less than a second a few days earlier she settled for a steady run here.

Pretty much holding a 93 second lap-pace throughout she passed 5000m in 19:23 and matched that on the second half to comfortably better the Scot's European mark with 38:46.9. Matheson still holds the W50 world record and the UK W55 record at the distance.

Elms tackles this event at the European Masters in Madeira next month and so far she is the only W60 worldwide to have broken 40 minutes in 2025.

Elms was the quickest woman at Battersea with the next fastest woman, the W45 winner Madeline Armstrong-Plieth (41:04.4).

The fastest man was M35 Julien Tadeusz (34:24.7) but it was M55 Terry Booth who won the Veterans AC trophy for first man. Booth, who has a PB of 31:01.4 from 1988, remarkably ran his fastest time this century with 34:20.4.

Other notable VAC age-group winners in the three 25-lap races were M50 Andrew McCarron (34:26.9), M60 Mark Tennyson (37:40.0) and W70 Maggie Statham-Berry (49:39.2).

British Masters Champs – early highlights

The British Masters Championships opened on Friday with some record performances.

A British W65 4x800m team had been denied a world record at a meeting in Nuneaton last month (where W45 and W60 teams were successful) when an official insisted a runner did another lap even though they had already completed 800m!

The BMAF thus organised this special event and the W65 team (and the officials) made no mistake.

Led off by Monica Williamson (2:45) W70 Anna Garnier (3:03), Jean Fabes (2:58) and Karen Brooks (2:52) their time of 11:38.09 took just under 10 seconds off of USA's previous world mark.

It's worth noting Fabes who ran laps of 80 and 98 was particularly relieved to stop after two laps after being forced to do a painful third lap at Nuneaton

Sarah Roberts who has set a number of records at all distances  added another with a UK W75 400m mark as she took championships gold in 80.82.

Incredibly this came just half a hour after she had won the BMAF 1500m in 6:07.26 which is only a second outside her world record though she has run 5:58.15 indoors.

In the 1500m, Garnier, the W70 mile world record-holder chased her home in 6:10.08 after having already ran her world record-breaking relay leg.

Also doubling impressively was M70 world champion Ian Broadhurst who won the 400m in 63.49 to go close to his British record and also won M70 gold in the 300m hurdles in 50.90. Behind him Anthony Roker ran a UK M75 record of 55.15.

Ireland's multi world champion Joe Gough won the M70 plus 1500m in 5:23.59 and behind him Pete Giles improved his UK M80 record to 6:11.00.

Stephen Peters won the M70 100m in an impressive 12.98/2.3 considering the strong headwind though he pulled out of the later 400m where he would have faced Broadhurst.

In the M90 100m Tony Bowman came close to the legendary Duncan McLean's UK record 19.9 from 1977 with 20.04.

One of the closest sprints was the M80 race where Allan Long (15.31) edged fellow Euro masters medalist Victor Novell (15.38). In the field another world masters champion winning gold was M65 John Moreland who threw 51.03m in the discus.

Robert Stevenson added a centimetre to the UK M70 long jump record with a 4.74/-0.2 leap while Tony Bowman (2.22m) set a M90 best.

M65 world shot champion Michael Hausler (13.94m) came out on top with Allan Leiper's 13.68m.

The championships continues on Saturday and Sunday.