Belfast running club bags medal haul at prestigious world championships

A Belfast running club is celebrating a medals gold rush after top performances at a world championship for older runners.

North Belfast Harriers veterans held their own against the best in the world at the Florida event for athletes aged from 35 to over 90.

The recent World Masters Indoor Track and Field Championships were held in Gainesville from March 22-30 with the highly competitive indoor track and field event featuring former Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth Games competitors.

After eight days of competition, 38 new World Records and 120 new Championship Records were set with over 3,700 athletes from 97 nations competing. Athletes from 69 nations found themselves on the podium. Team USA led the medal count with a total of 557, followed by Great Britain’s 93 and Germany’s 70.

But it was two local athletes’ performances which raised some eyebrows in local running circles, with four medals between them. Builder Davy Clarke, from Larne, bagged three Gold medals and two Championship records over 800m (2.21.00) and 3000m (10.08.04). The 65-year-old also narrowly missed the M65 1500m World Record by 2 seconds, despite a fairly tactical race. In a highly competitive race which featured three current world record holders in Kojo Kyereme (GB&NI), Francis Kipkoech Bowen (Kenya) and Mark Williams (USA), Davy’s North Belfast Harrier teammate Conor Curran secured a Silver medal in the M50 1500m to back up his European Silver medal from Torun, Poland last year.

Coached by running legend, Jimmy McGuinness, the North Belfast man, who lives off the Antrim Road and works at Queen’s University Belfast, was a doubt for the Championships having been hit by illness and a disrupted period of training during the winter.

But a brave approach in the race paid off as Kipkoech, who had earlier in the week set an M50 World Record in the 3000m (8.36.23) seemed reluctant to take the pace on.

This lead to ‘kicker’s’ race between Kyereme, Curran and Williams and that’s the order the race finished in. As the Championship wrapped up, 69 different nations found themselves on the podium. Team USA led the medal count with a total of 557, followed by Great Britain’s 93 and Germany’s 70.

The Republic of Ireland also made a splash with 80-year-old Cork man Michael Kealy winning a gold medal in the 800m race in the 80-84 age category. He ran the race in 3.09.35.

The baton is now passed to South Korea. The 2026 WMA Championships are set to begin on August 22, 2026, in Daegu.

Before that the two Stags from North Belfast will have their eyes set on more track racing this summer on the tracks around Ireland and the UK.

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