Christa Bortignon

International September 3, 2018

Nagasaki atom bomb survivor sets Malaga goal: Complete 17 events at worlds

Malaga worlds begins in a few hours, starting with the W50 hammer. Start lists are up, with results expected early Tuesday. (Malaga is six hours ahead of East Coast time, nine ahead of Left Coast.) Opening ceremonies pictures are flooding Facebook, and I’m reminded of a great breakdown of entry stats by Dmitry Babenko. His engrossing spreadsheet of the 5,503 men entered and 2,694 women is already out of date, though. Canada’s great W80 multi-eventer Christa Bortignon writes: “I had to cancel Malaga because my husband’s hip problem turned out to be very serious. After several weeks in serious pain…

Records August 7, 2018

Records set (W80 pentathlon, W55 throws pent) and record lost (W60 800-meter run)

So much for a lull between Spokane nationals and Malaga worlds. Christa Bortignon of British Columbia scored 4838 points in the outdoor pentathlon over the weekend to nip the listed W80 world record of 4319 by Vermont’s Flo Meiler at 2014 Winston-Salem nationals. Christa competed at Canadian masters nationals at South Surrey Athletic Park. (See results here.) Not far away, in Seattle, Neni Lewis beat the listed American record in the W55 throws pentathlon, scoring 4370 points. The previous record-holder (4219) was fellow Hall of Famer Carol Finsrud, who also competed — and set an AR in the ultraweight pent….