ORONO – Four years ago, the nation’s best “seasoned” track athletes converged on Orono – just like they are this weekend – for the USA Track & Field National Masters Championships.

Plenty of those athletes are back, making return visits to a venue that national organizers have praised as one of the best host sites ever.

For others, this trip to Orono is a first … and special.

Like Jim Sutton.

Sutton, a 71-year-old from Reading, Pa., didn’t make it to Orono in 1998. And he had a pretty good reason.

“I had cancer then, so I wasn’t running,” he said Thursday, after winning the 5,000-meter run for his age group.

“I had just finished with radiation treatment. I had the operation and the cancer had come back,” he said.

Sutton was a bit bitter about finding out he had prostate cancer. He thought doctors could have done a better job of diagnosing it earlier.

But the thing that he dwells on now, four years later? It’s that the two years he spent battling the disease is two years he can’t get back.

He was at the top of the masters track game back then. He was only 65 when he received the diagnosis. And by fighting for his life, he missed out on an entire five-year age group.

“That screwed up all of 65 through 70,” he said with a chuckle.

On Thursday, Sutton was back, and just as competitive as ever. He tracked race leader Charles Williams for the better part of 12 laps before bolting into the lead off the final corner. He ran the 3.1-mile race in 22 minutes, 7.04 seconds.

Sutton also plans to compete in the 800- and 1,500-meter runs in the meet, which runs through Sunday at the University of Maine’s Clarence Beckett Family Track Complex.

But a part of him is already looking forward to heading back to Pennsylvania.

“I like to windsurf, and the day I came up, the wind was about 20 mph,” he said. “I went down to see all my buddies – my buddies are 20 and 30 [years old] – and they’re all windsurfing. I was dying. I can’t wait to get home.”

Some athletes weren’t quite so eager to pack up their bags and head back home Thursday.

Like Armando Ricciardi. Ricciardi, an 82-year-old who grew up in Providence, R.I., and now lives in Reno, Nev., hasn’t competed since the last time the meet was held in Orono. A back injury has given him trouble since then.

But on Thursday, there was Ricciardi, sitting in a lawn chair, waiting for a chance to vault again.

Ricciardi has the track routine down pat: He knows enough to protect himself against the sun with a floppy hat. He knows to bring his own chair. And he knows that when he stands up, he’d better make sure his sun umbrella is firmly tied to that chair.

Ricciardi proudly displayed a photo of himself as a freshman pole vaulter at Brown University as he waited for the event to start.

“I was a pretty good-looking guy,” he said with a grin, looking at the 1940 photo.

Despite all his preparation, Ricciardi’s day didn’t have quite the start he anticipated.

First, officials told him he’d put too much athletic tape on the pole.

Ricciardi readily peeled off layers of tape, eager to make his implement useable.

“Whatever you want me to take off, I’ll take off,” he said, busily peeling.

But it seemed other alterations Ricciardi had made to his pole – cutting it in two so that he could bolt it together for competition, then store it safely for the long journeys home – aren’t quite legal.

Ricciardi pleaded his case, telling officials that airlines have routinely destroyed his other poles as he has traveled as far as Russia and Australia to compete. That damage had forced him to take drastic measures, he said.

“It’s a disadvantage [to have it in two pieces], but I’d rather have that and have a pole, rather than end up borrowing some girl’s pole in a foreign country,” he said.

On Thursday, he ended up borrowing. Luckily, Joy MacDonald of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was willing to donate her pole to the cause.

Ricciardi ended up clearing 5 feet, 5 inches as the only competitor in the 80-84 age group.

Athletes from all over the world have converged on Orono for the weekend, and many plan day trips to area tourist attractions.

Others, like Phil Raschker, are in Orono to run. And jump. And hurdle.

Raschker, a 55-year-old woman who grew up in West Germany, lives in Marietta, Ga. She’s a legend in masters track circles.

Raschker holds so many world age-group records that she can’t keep track of the exact number. According to one Web site, it’s at least 18.

Make that 19.

On Thursday (after winning the pole vault with a winning effort of 9-10) she set another world mark in the 80-meter hurdles during the pentathlon competition.

Her time: a speedy 13.19.

Raschker, who plans on competing in eight events, along with the five-event pentathlon, said she likes to keep busy.

“I hate sitting around,” Raschker said. “I’d rather do something to keep the body in motion. If I sit down too long I get stiff and it’s that much harder to start up again. If I continuously do something, I’m OK.”

Raschker also holds the 55-59 world record in the pole vault, though she didn’t match it Thursday.

“In the jumping events – the long jump and triple jump – I’m not ready to go after the world records, so I’m going to go for the gold and leave it at that. And I’ll concentrate more on the other events where I feel like I can get a world record.”

She said she expects to challenge the existing world marks in the 100, 200 and 300 hurdles before the weekend’s over.

But in between events, she’s also willing to help out her fellow competitors.

On Thursday, that meant helping Ricciardi plead his case to officials, along with comforting him as it became apparent that the decision wasn’t going to go his way.

For the athletes, numbers are both currency and identity. Run a 13.19, and people here know what it means. Tell them you’re a W65, and it makes sense.

For the uninitiated, the latter is an age group. And most athletes here are a lot like Flo Meiler of Shelburne, Vt.

Meiler revels in her age, and proudly pointed out that she was the oldest woman competing in the pole vault, and that she cleared a personal best of 6-5.

Meiler is a late-bloomer in track. For 30 years, she was a competitive water skier. At 50, she gave that sport up.

Too old? Not quite.

“My teenage children were more interested in other things,” she said. “I would have continued but they didn’t want to drive the boat any more, like we did, for hours and hours.”

Meiler moved on to tennis for 10 years, then – at 60 – decided to run track.

This weekend, she’ll be busy. She’s running the 100, 200 and two hurdles races and competing in the shot put, discus, high jump, long jump, pole vault … and the five-event pentathlon.

And go ahead. Ask her how old she is.

“I’m proud of it. A lot of women don’t like to say their age,” the 68-year-old said. “Well, I am so tickled to say my age because when I start telling people what I do, they can’t believe it.”