Veteran athlete John Mayor won bronze at the European Masters. Mayor won a bronze medal in the decathlon for men aged 45-49 at the 15th European Veterans Athletics Championships in Poznan, Poland. In temperatures reaching 40 degrees, the Stevenage athlete

Veteran athlete John Mayor won bronze at the European Masters.

Mayor won a bronze medal in the decathlon for men aged 45-49 at the 15th European Veterans Athletics Championships in Poznan, Poland.

In temperatures reaching 40 degrees, the Stevenage athlete and MBDA employee secured a major championship medal in the gruelling 10-event decathlon.

After the first day John was just 28 points off the lead with good performances in the 100m in 12.37 seconds, a long jump of 5.82m, shot put of 9.42m, and a high jump of 1.71m which was his best for eight years.

He finished off with a creditable run in the 400m in a time of 55.33 seconds for a first day score of 3670 points.

It put him in second place against a strong field particularly from Germany and host nation Poland.

The second day started at 8.15am and in the 110m hurdles, a time of 16.77 seconds put him momentarily in the lead.

The discus, his weakest event, was next with a throw of 26.16m putting him back into second.

Despite a personal best in the pole vault of 2.70m, John then slipped to third place overall with just two events remaining.

A pulled groin muscle meant that he achieved just one throw in the javelin of 34.18m which left him in fourth place.

After 50 minutes of treatment by the Great Britain team physiotherapy staff, John started the 1500m race knowing he had to beat a strong athlete from Lithuania by two seconds to gain a bronze.

Running on adrenaline and in pain, he managed to beat this athlete by an amazing 23 seconds to gain his first international medal. His total was 6458 points, only behind winner Stephan Mathieu from Germany (6782 points) and team-mate Allan Leiper (6616 points).

John said: "A big thank you to the Great Britain Masters medical staff for all their help in patching me up and to MBDA at Stevenage who helped fund the costs of me participating.