NAL Championship South Round 1 – Poole – 31 May
Written by Alex Seftel
Crawley high jumper Julia Machin beat her own world masters record by clearing 1.60m in the high jump at the National Athletics League Championship South match in Poole on 31 May.
Machin – a former UK indoor champion who achieved a lifetime best of 1.92 when winning the title in 1990 – initially drew level with the old V55 world record with 1.55 in Carshalton in February.
She then cleared 1.58 on 11 May to hold it outright, pulling clear of fellow Briton Wendy Laing and Frenchwoman Florence Picaut.
In Poole on Saturday, Machin cleared 1.55 first time, before then getting over 1.60 at the second attempt to make yet more history.
It means that this year is the first in 73 years that Picaut has not been at least a joint holder of the record for those age 55 and over, as she cleared 1.55 in Versailles in 1952, before Laing equalled it in Madrid in 2018.
The long-serving PE teacher turned 55 in March and is also the world masters record holder in the V50 category, having made it over 1.70 in Brighton in 2021.
Formerly known as Julia Bennett, she has consistently been a record breaker for much of the last decade, but she isn’t short on international pedigree either.
She competed at the 1994 and 2006 Commonwealth Games for England, finishing 7th and 9th respectively.
The former result in Canada came after winning the UK title outdoors and competing at that year’s European Championships in Helsinki.
The latter placing in Melbourne came just days before her 36th birthday.
She has a respectable heptathlon score of 5747 from 1996, too.
Machin still regularly competes across several disciplines in the Southern Athletics League and coaches a number of Brighton and Hove athletes including Livvy Connor.
Crawley AC posted a video of the jump in Poole on their Instagram page.
