Ron Taylor

We have received the News that Ron Taylor has passed away . He was 92 year old.

During a wonderful career he set many Masters World Records in the M50,M50 and M60 age groups . In fact his M60 100m (11.70) and 200m(24.00) set in Athens in 1994 in the European Masters Champs  still stand today as the World Records. He holds eleven Club records and was a member of 3 relay team  records

A couple of particula note were an M40 RSC 4x200m Team setting an Indoor  World Record at Cosford in 1986 of 1.37.3 which was featured in Athletics Weekly article about Ron with a photo of the team. Ron was 49 at the time. The other two RSC athletes were Barry Moulton and Arthur Orr. 

The other was the M50 400m World Record of 51.8 set at Swansea also in 1986 . Ron had pricipally run 400m races when he was a younger athlete at Birchfield but when he switched to RSC he wanted to run the 100m and 200m . He had asked John Topliss to set a pace for this attempt and Ron ran in lane 4 and John in Lane 3. He asked for a 200m split of between 24.5 and 25.0  and John was able to go through in 24.6 . When John reached 250m he was starting to struggle a bit and Ron glided past him and went on to win the race in the new World M50 time of 51.8 which was later ratified . John finished 3rd in 53 something .            

As far as we can recall that during this period Ron was never beaten in the sprints in his age group whether it be World, European, or British Championships . He was also an accomplished Javelin thrower and holds the Club M55 record. Ron was a character and a great athlete and will be sadly missed.

Thanks for John T for providing his thoughts on this wonderful athlete.