90-year-old U.S. runner Dot Sowerby, topples Canadian’s 1,500m world age-group record

A90-year-old runner saved the best for last during her winning weekend at the USATF Masters Outdoor Championships in Greensboro, N.C., breaking the W90 world record in the 1,500m and claiming the crown from a Canadian.

Greensboro’s own Dot Sowerby delighted a hometown crowd Sunday when she ran the 1,500m in 11:30.62, taking more than a minute off the record held by North Vancouver’s Lenore Montgomery, who covered the distance in 12:34.67 at a track meet in Surry, B.C., in September 2020.

Sowerby’s world-record effort this week, which has yet to be ratified, capped off a memorable weekend for the athlete, who racked up quite a collection of medals over the four-day event at Truist Stadium.

She finished her first day of competition last Friday with gold in the 400m (2:35.33) and silver in the 100m  (26.25)—right at the heels of first-place finisher Betty Stroh. On the same day, she took gold in the long jump (1.05m) and the shot put (4.51m). She followed that up Saturday with gold in the 800m (5:52.93).

Her accomplishments in Greensboro are all the more impressive considering they came just one week after she collected six gold medals at the 2023 National Senior Games in Pittsburgh.

“I have a philosophy that you are never too old to do something like running or whatever you want to do,” Sowerby told Greensboro’s News & Record heading into the USATF Masters Outdoor Championships.  “When I came along, they would not let girls in high school and college run because they thought they were too fragile or something. So, I did my first race when I was 50 years old.”

Although Sowerby has taken Montgomery’s 1,500m world record, the latter athlete’s name still features prominently in the Canadian masters record book. In addition to her W90 1,500m record, Montgomery holds 11 other outdoor track records. These include the W85 and W95 records in the 800m,  the W75 and W85 in the 1,500m, the W80 and W85 records in the 3,000m, the W70, W75, W80 and W85 in the 5,000m and the W75 record in the 10,000m.

posted Saturday July 29th
by Paul Baswick