Geoff Helisma

The joy of training is Tom Hancock’s secret when it came to taking on all-comers at the Australian Masters Athletics Championships held in Brisbane from April 1 to 4.

The 85-year-old won every event he contested in ‘throws’ events for 85 to 90-year-olds – shotput, discuss, javelin, weight, hammer and the throws pentathlon – and he took out the high jump, too, leaving the event with a fist full of gold medals

It was virtually a repeat of his efforts at the 2017 masters games in the 80 to 90-year-olds division.

The Independent caught up with Tom Hancock at his Maclean home.

Geoff Helisma: How do you maintain your motivation and desire to compete as you grow older, and how is that a positive thing in your life?

Tom Hancock: I enjoy training, and I enjoy going to the gym. You’ve got to keep your strength up if you want to compete.

GH: If the goal is to compete, then you have to train hard, which is a positive for you, but, perhaps, not so much with most octogenarians; where does your motivation come from?

TH: I’m very happy to go and train on my own. A lot of people can only compete in a team. I’ve coached people one-on-one who like to have other people around them, but I’m very happy to train on my own.

GH: I guess your preparation would have been hindered by Covid; how did that affect you?

TH: So, what I had to do was go on muscle memory, so I had to get into the [throwing] ring and [think] this is what I used to do.

GH: Where does your drive come from?

TH: It’s very hard to describe. What I have for all of these events, is I have a newsreel that’s running [in my head] and I know that I have to do this particular skill for this particular event – I know that you have to do one, two, three, four, to be successful. I’ve got a picture of that – not necessarily me doing it, but the skill – and I’ve got it for the seven events.

Tom says there “is very strong camaraderie among the athletes [at the games]; they are all very interested in what you are doing, and I’m very interested in what they are doing”.

“I know most of their performances,” he says.

“I’ll just give you an example. The guy across the road is 67. He’s just moved in and is interested in doing throws, so I coach him.

“He had never been in a competition before he went to the [games]. He was in the shotput with about 12 guys in the 67-aged group.

“These guys didn’t know him from a bar of soap, and they’re coming over saying, ‘Look, if you put your foot here, you’ll do better; or if you do this, you’ll do better.’

“He was amazed; he thought these guys were going to be, ‘Aah, you’re a new guy, we’re not going to be interested in you.’

“He came over to me and said, ‘These guys are fantastic!’ – and that goes right through [masters] athletics.”

Tom Hancock earned an OAM for his “service to athletics”, which recognised his achievements as a throws coach for Australian teams, including coaching eight-time Australian discus champion Werner Reiterer to gold at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Canada.

Meanwhile, he won seven gold medals from the seven events he contested at the recent Australian Masters Athletics championships, setting an Australian record for the weight throw and Australian Masters Athletics Championship records for shot put, high jump and javelin. Image: Geoff Helisma