The Italian Job
When sprinter Paul Wignall packed his bags to head for the European Masters Championships in Pescara, Italy, in September, his goal was simply to make the final of the individual M70 400m – little did he know that on the return journey he would be adding a complete set of medals: gold, silver and bronze, to his luggage.
Long-time Club member Paul is the latest in a line of Masters athletes who have won some thirty medals between them at World and European Championships over the years since former international Geoff Walcott set up the training group with Dermot Dunne. When Geoff decided to call it a day in 2021 400m runner and Club coach Mark White stepped seamlessly into the void.
Many a Club youngster has followed in a parent’s footsteps, but not quite so many the other way round, however in Paul’s case it is largely thanks to the enthusiasm of his daughter, Laura, herself a sprinter, and her cousin Harry Wignall, who joined Hercules as teenagers, that he re-kindled his love of running. ‘I was a decent school cross country runner; enjoyed it a lot’ he says, ‘but at university that all fell apart. I took up football and later squash, then in my thirties let that go and got a bit overweight. It wasn’t until Laura and Harry started at Hercules, which was our local club, that I decided to go for a run again – I went out on my own, overdid it and ended up injured for a year!’
He confesses he can’t remember quite why he decided to give sprinting a go at Hercules at the age of fifty, but 'there was a vets competition coming up, which I entered and thought, ‘this is good fun’.
‘I still enjoyed endurance running, though, and through sheer madness and my love of Greece, in 2010 I ran in the Athens Marathon, which was the 2500th anniversary of the Battle of Marathon, and got a bit of a taste for the marathon. I did three more: Edinburgh, and London in 2012 and 2013, which I enjoyed, but I’m very competitive, and so breaking 4 hours didn’t feel like a big deal. That is when I decided to really focus on sprinting.
‘Given that I would be turning 70 before the European Championships in September, Pescara was my target and the intention was to do the 100m, 200m and 400m (as well as the 4 x 400m if selected)’, he says. Despite his love of the 200m, he knows that the 400m is his best distance, given his base of endurance training, although he admits to still learning how to perfect this most testing of events. ‘You absolutely have to go out hard, get up to a fast cruising speed and then give it whatever you have left over the last 100m – that suits my personality!’
Disappointingly, eight weeks before the Championships he picked up a calf injury, and after discussions with Dermot and Mark, they agreed he should pull out of the shorter events and focus solely on the 400m. ‘The day of the heats was beautiful, warm and sunny and I won my race (the first of three), qualifying third fastest for the final’, he says. ’I get quite emotional thinking about it, because that was my goal. I knew my time was good enough to get to the final, it was just about putting aside any lingering fitness doubts and delivering on the day.’
Meanwhile he was approached by the GB M65 team who were an athlete short for the 4 x 100m and agreed to step in, despite the younger, faster age group, and the fact that the race was scheduled for only four hours before the 400m final. He and his teammates came away with a bronze medal, and shortly afterwards Paul was settling into his blocks for the final of the 400m. Against him were three other GB athletes who had been members of the 4x100m M70 gold winning team earlier in the afternoon and had also broken the 4x200m European indoor record this year, plus the Finnish athlete, Tarmo Tupala, who had run faster in the heats. Coming off the final bend Paul moved into the lead, only for the best of the British athletes, Simon Barrett, to respond as expected and clinch the win, with a delighted Paul crossing the line to take the silver medal in 68.39.
And the medal spree wasn’t over yet. His final event, the M70 4 x 400m featured all four of the GB athletes who had run in the final of the individual event, so the gold medal was in the bag provided they got the baton round. Instead the aim was to set a new British record, which they did with aplomb, clocking 4:33.71 to slice almost five seconds from the previous best time.
Paul’s attention has now turned to the European Masters Indoor Championships in Torun, Poland, in March, followed by the World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden in August, where he says, ‘we will be up against the big guns from America and Canada.’ As usual Dermot and Mark’s group focus is on hill training on Tuesdays for endurance, and track reps on Thursdays for speed. ‘I love training’, says Paul. ‘I never wake up and think I don’t want to go to the track today; and I enjoy the camaraderie of the group (which includes daughter Laura) and the ethos of the Club. We all want to train hard, race well, and we really want to win. I like that.
‘I’m really looking forward to next season and especially the major Championships, as in an odd way the pressure is off now’ he admits. ‘It was so important to me just to make that 400m final, so I can scarcely believe I came home with a complete set of medals.’