Lisa Thomas has won the lemon drizzle cake prize for best age-graded masters 400m at this year's Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting, clocking 65.69 seconds at the Weir Archer Athletics and Fitness Centre on 30th August.
The cake prize is one of the meeting's own traditions, awarded each year to the masters athlete who produces the best age-graded performance over 400m rather than simply the fastest time on the clock, a fitting way to mark an event held in memory of Bob Lewis, himself a European Masters Games Champion over the distance.
Thomas competes for Hercules Wimbledon, and her winning run at Kingston continues a strong record over the distance at masters level. She has been a regular medallist in the women's over-50 400m at British Masters indoor championships, taking gold in one year with a time of 65.89 and silver in another at 65.58, finishing both times inside a couple of seconds of that Bob Lewis-winning mark. She has doubled up over 800m at the same championships too, adding a silver medal in 2:33.88 to her collection, and her range extends further still. British Masters rankings have listed her as the top-ranked female masters athlete nationally, with performances spanning everything from the 300m hurdles through to the 3000m steeplechase, a breadth that few masters athletes can match.
That versatility is part of what makes a win like this one notable. Age-graded scoring exists precisely to reward athletes performing at the top of their own age category, and a 65.69 from an athlete with Thomas's track record and range over 400m is exactly the kind of performance the format is designed to recognise. It is also a reminder of the strength in depth that masters athletics in the south east continues to produce, with clubs including Hercules Wimbledon regularly sending competitors to age-graded meetings across the region.
The Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting has built its masters competition around exactly this kind of racing since its first edition. Held annually at the Weir Archer Centre and now in its fourth year, the meeting gives masters athletes a genuine competitive fixture alongside the club's junior and senior programme, rather than treating the age groups as an afterthought. The lemon drizzle cake prize, small as it sounds, has become part of what makes the meeting distinctive, a light-hearted addition to what is otherwise a serious age-graded competition, and one that has stuck since Momentum Sports launched the event in Bob Lewis's memory.
Thomas's win adds her name to a meeting that continues to draw a strong masters field each year, competing alongside age-graded athletes from clubs across the region on a day that also included junior medal races and PB celebrations throughout the programme. For Hercules Wimbledon, it is another result to add to a club with a well-established reputation in masters athletics, and for Thomas herself, another line in a results record that already includes national medals over 400m and 800m and a British Masters ranking to match.
Age grading works by comparing a performance against the world-best standard for that athlete's age and sex, converting a raw time into a percentage that allows fair comparison across age groups. It means a 65.69 from an athlete in the W50 category can be judged on equal terms against a much younger sprinter's 400m, and it is precisely that kind of comparison the lemon drizzle cake prize was set up to reward. For a meeting built around Bob Lewis's own achievements as a masters champion, it is a fitting way to keep the masters competition central to the day rather than an add-on to the junior and senior programme.
The Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting is run by Momentum Sports and sponsored by TF1 Athletic and Weir Archer Fitness. Full results and more photos from the day will follow.