Olympic gold medalist Glynis Nunn (centre) with Victorian winners Richard Trembath (left) and Don Chambers (7703)

Doncaster-based athletes had a dominant carnival at the Pan Pacific Masters’ Games at the Gold Coast over the Melbourne Cup weekend with veteran Leo Coffey the star.

As well as winning three gold medals and a silver, Coffey was a member of the team which broke the Men’s 80-84 age-group 4×400 metres relay world record by a staggering 16 seconds.

Coffey, 82, joined NSW athlete Richard Hughes and Western Australian David Carr, both 80, and Queenslander George Harrod, 83, in running5min. 32.29sec – an average of 83 seconds per 400 metres – to smash the previous record of 5m 48.16s set by a German team only five weeks earlier.

Leo Coffey….world record

The Germans’ time had taken 12 seconds off the 14-year-old record of 6m 00.03s set by a Japanese team in Okinawa in 1998.

Coffey is a member of the East Burwood venue of Victorian Masters’ Athletics, which has been racing at Doncaster for the past year while their track is under reconstruction.

So too are sprinter Sonya Pollard, 46, who scored a clean sweep at the Games, taking gold in the 60m, 100m and 200m, and Andrew Wilcox, 43, who was second in his 200m before winning his 400m in a Games record of 52.91s.

Doncaster venue members Richard Trembath, 70, and Richard Wearmouth, 60, were also among the medals with Trembath taking two gold and two silver and Wearmouth being runner-up in each of his three sprints.

Trembath won the 400m and was second in both the 200m and 800m but the highlight was his success in the 300m hurdles.

Contesting his first hurdle race for 4½ years, during which time he has had a hip replacement, Trembath found himself in a combined age-group event, the field for which included 1984 Los Angeles Olympics gold medalist Glynis Nunn-Cearns, now 51, who was contesting the Women’s 50-54 division.

Nunn-Cearns was first past the post in a time of 52.86s, three metres clear of Trembath, whose 53.45s broke both the M70-74 Pan Pacs and Victorian records. Being in different age divisions, both won gold medals.

Another Victorian, Don Chambers, took the M75-79 gold medal in the same event.

‘It was a real honour just to race against Glynis,’ Trembath said after the event, ‘but to get so close to her was unbelievable.’

‘Glynis was the ambassador for the Games and she actually presented me with my medal so that was a thrill too,’ he added.

Coffey said the plan to attack the M80 world record was hatched after a failed attempt at the Australian Masters’ Athletics Championships at the Lakeside Stadium in Melbourne last Easter.

That team, which included three of those who ran at the Gold Coast, missed the record (then 6m 00.03s) by three one-hundredths of a second, after which Coffey and Hughes decided to try to get a team together for another go at the Pan Pacific Games.

‘We had a bit of trouble convincing David Carr to come from Perth but he’s a current World Champion (over 800m) and we really needed him,’ Coffey said.

‘Richard (Hughes) and I were really keen and George (Harrod) was already there (in Queensland) so once we had David, it was on,’ he added.

Coffey revealed that all his winter training had been done with the record attempt in mind.

‘What we had to make sure of was that we were all fit at the right time,’ he explained. ‘It’s pretty hard to get four eighty-year-olds in the one place at the one time, let alone four who are fit enough and silly enough to want to do it.’

The plan didn’t just involve winter training but also some sacrifices at the meeting.

The relays were not scheduled until the final day so Coffey and Hughes contested the 100m on the first day and the 60m on the second, winning one each, then Coffey took the third day off, ‘lying on the bed’ at his accommodation while he normally would have been running the 200m.

The individual 400m was scheduled for the fourth day but all four of the relay team gave it a miss, saving themselves for the relay.

All the planning almost ‘came unstuck’, however, when officials brought the relay forward from its advertised starting time, denying the runners the opportunity to warm up properly.

‘We were just starting to warm up,’ Coffey said, ‘when one of the officials came over and said they were running early and that we were on after the next event.

‘We were going to warm up together but we really only had the chance to do one run-through before we had to go to the start. We reckon it might have cost us a couple of seconds each but it all turned out all right – we were pretty pleased,’ he grinned.

And it’s safe to say that’s one world record which is going to last for a long, long time.