Momentum Sports founder Richard Holt won the M50 400m hurdles at the British Masters Championships, running 65.54 in windy conditions to take the title in what is his final year competing in the age group.
Richard, who competes for Momentum Track Club, has built his 2026 season around a full multi-event programme for Southern Athletics League Division fixtures alongside his hurdling. His year has taken in the 60m indoors, both the 110m and 400m hurdles, high jump, pole vault, triple jump, shot, discus, hammer and javelin, a spread of events with the aim of scoring as many points for the team as possible!
The 400m hurdles has been a consistent thread through his year. Richard won the event at Southern Athletics League fixtures in Tooting Bec and Kingston earlier in the season, running times in the low-to-mid 70s as he built toward the championship performance at the British Masters. His most recent competitive outing before the title, the 400m hurdles at Momentum Sports' own Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting on 30th August, saw him win in 68.09, a sign that his form was building toward a fast time heading into the championships.
A 65.54 in windy conditions represents a significant step down from those earlier season times (partly as those were just trotting round for points!), and winning a national title in the final year of the M50 category, before moving up to M55 next season, adds extra weight to the result. Age-group boundaries in masters athletics matter more than they might first appear: an athlete racing at the top end of a five-year age band is competing against rivals who may be several years younger, and a title won in the last possible year of that band is often the hardest of the cycle to claim. Windy conditions add a further variable specific to the hurdles, where rhythm between barriers matters as much as raw speed, and holding form well enough to run inside 66 seconds despite that suggests the race went close to plan technically as well as physically.
Richard's role at Momentum Sports extends well beyond his own competitive programme. As founder of the club, and as lead coach to senior athletes, he combines a full training and competition schedule of his own with responsibility for developing some of the club's standout members. That dual role, competing at national championship level while also coaching, is relatively unusual, and Richards's own results this year suggest the training principles behind Momentum Sports' broader success are ones he applies to himself as much as to the athletes he coaches.
The 400m hurdles title caps what has already been a productive year for Momentum Sports across every level of the club, from junior medal winners and age-group champions through to senior sprinters, masters record breakers and now a national champion in the club's own founder. With a move up to the M55 age group ahead of him next season, Richard's title defence will look rather different in twelve months, but for now the M50 crown, won in windy conditions in his final eligible year, stands as one of the standout individual results of Momentum Sports' 2026 season.
Congratulations, Richard.
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