The season of British Milers Club meetings came to a conclusion on Wednesday with another high quality line up of races. As always for the August meeting the highlight of the evening was the Sydney Wooderson Memorial 800m race. The line-up for this race was once again top quality and it included recent European Championship finalist Charlie Grice. However, Charlie could not claim that title for the third time as his club mate Spencer Thomas just held off Charlie to claim the £150 first prize, winning in a time of 1:49.04. Spencer worked his way to the front of the pack and in the home straight did enough to take the title.
In the BMC Women’s Challenge race it was a comfortable win for in-form athlete Katie Snowden who beat US based athlete Hannah Segrave into second. Slightly blustery conditions took the edge of the times this year. Katie won in 2:05.52. Prizes for the race were presented by Olympic gold medalist Sally Gunnell.
In total there were fourteen 800m races and two 5000m races in a night packed with action. Amongst these races there was a smattering of Cambridge Harriers. In the A 5000m Ben Shearer capped of an excellent summer of track racing with a new PB of 15:08.65 to come fourth. All the first seven in the A race achieved new PBs. In the B race Andy Inglis and Andrew Whelan came second and third, and new club member Lewis Baker made his debut running 17:21.61.
Ben Shearer
Elsewhere Tom Simpson ran a PB in the H race coming home with 2:05.05. In this race 7 out of 8 runners gained new PBs. Wole Odele came 6th in the H race, Matthew Preston came second in the K 800m in 2:16 and Lara Atkinson came 7th in the L race in 2:26.
This year in total the Club along with the BMC, helped lay on five meetings – 4 regional meetings and for the first time a BMC Grandprix. The meetings are now attracting middle and long distance athletes from far and wide and for some of the meetings the entries had to be closed early because the races were full. Of course all of this is only made possible by all the help and support offered by Club members and neighbouring officials.
Video footage: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bmc+eltham
(Photos courtesy of Mark Hookway.)