Following a one year break, the IWAS Athletics Series successfully returned once again to the Netherlands for 2013.

Once again the series began with the Dutch Open National Championships in Emmeloord on the 11th and 12th May with several notable athlete achievements.

Holland’s Marlou Van Rhijn set a 400metres T43 world record, clocking a time of 1min 4.95 seconds to take nearly five seconds off the best time. Also Russia’s Vladimir Sviridov set an unofficial world-best throw of 14.70 metres in the F36 shot put and Belgian wheelchair sprinter Marieke Vervoort broke two European records in the T52 100m and 400m events.

Vervoort took seven-tenths of a second off her European and Paralympic record to finish the T52 100m in 18.99 sec, just three tenths of a second behind the world record set by Michelle Stilwell of Canada.

On the 15th May the series moved to its second competition which was held in Groningen. Further world records were broken on the field, with Great Britain’s Aled Davis throwing 14.67 metres in the F42 shot put and Alexey Kuznetsov from Russia achieving 29.92 metres in the F54 javelin. Throughout the entire series Russia was by far the largest team present, which of course reflected in many of the results.

For the women, Germany’s Birgit Kober managed to set a new world record of 10.40 metres for the F34 shotput.

The third and final competition of the 2013 series was held in Pagecentrum, Stadskanaal on the 19th May, which is the same location where the IWAS World Games 2013 will also be held in September.

Overall IWAS Technical Manager Jan Bockweg confirmed that the IWAS Athletics Series 2013 was a great success, with athletes from many countries taking part. Adding that this may have been in part to the LOC’s increasing the overall prize money in total to EUR €10,000. After the 3 competitions the prize money was handed over to the athletes at Pagecentrum.