Eleven brave Harriers with an average age of 58.3, made the long journey to Canterbury on Monday night to continue the defence of our Kent Area League title.
The first event was the Discus, where our throwers did brilliantly for a 1-2-3 finish. Tony Tipping, lying in 2nd place at the start of the last round, threw the 2kg Discus 32.66m, just 6cm further than the erstwhile leader to secure first place. 83 year-old Warwick Dixon, dropping down a couple of age groups to compete in the M60 event finished second, whilst Peter Wishart finished 3rd in the M50 event.
The next event was the 200m where Stanley Thomas dropped down an age group to come 5th in the difficult M35 A-string. Paris Hunt also dropped down an age group for the B-string and was about 10m behind the Medway runner at the end of the bend but spectacularly clawed back the gap to be level at the finish and was unfortunate to be classified 4th with the same time as the Medway runner. The M50 race featured another tight finish with Wole Odele about half a metre behind the Dartford runner at the end of the bend. He quickly made up the gap on the straight with both runners then neck and neck for the last 80m to the finish line and was once again unfortunate to be classified 2nd with the same time as the winner.
Paris and Wole were back in the field with Paris dropping down an age group to come 6th in the Long Jump, whilst Wole, who was lying in 4th place after the 3rd round of jumps, managed to produce his best jump in the last round to come 2nd, just 2cms short of the winning jump.
The action moved back to the track where Mick Ellsmore did well to finish 2nd in the M60 event. Matthew Preston, once again our only runner in the M35-49 age group, came 4th running the A-string race whilst Chief Timekeeper, Dave Kitcher, took a break from his timekeeping duties to come 4th in the B-string despite dropping down an age group. Mark Cross was 5th in the M50 event.
The final event was the 4x100m. The annual Canterbury event is renowned for its showers and we thought we had escaped it this time, but just as the relay was about to start, the rain came!. The quartet of Wole, Stan, Paris and Tim put safety first to get the baton round and secure 2 more points for the team leaving us in 4th place on the night and 3rd on overall match points.
Special thanks to the Cambridge Harriers officiating team of Dave Kitcher (Chief Timekeeper), Barry Ferguson (Timekeeper) & Richard Mann (Announcer)
RESULTS: M35 200M Stanley Thomas (M55) 326.7 5th M35 200M Paris Hunt (M50) 27.8 4th (B String) M35 1500M Matthew Preston (M50) 4.35.5 4th M35 1500M David Kitchener (M50) 5.37.7 4th (B String) M35 4x100M Wole Odele – Paris Hunt – Tim Carter – Stanley Thomas 54.7 5th M35 LONG JUMP Paris Hunt (M50) 4.58 6th M35 DISCUS Anthony Tipping (M50) 32.66 1st M50 1500M Mark Cross (M55) 5.38.9 4th W50 LONG JUMP Wole Odele 4.89 2nd M50 DISCUS Peter Wishart (M55) 27.85 3rd M60 1500M Mick Ellsmore 5.52.2 2nd M60 DISCUS Warwick Dixon (M80) 24.70 2nd
MATCH RESULTS 1. Medway & Maidstone 6 / 51 2. Dartford 5 / 50 3. Ashford 4 / 47 4. CAMBRIDGE HARRIERS 3 / 46 5. Bexley 22 / 45 6. Blackheath & Bromley 1 / 28
OVERALL DETAILS 1. Dartford 11 / 111 2. Medway & Maidstone 10.5 / 99 3. CAMBRIDGE HARRIERS 7.5 / 94 4. Ashford 6 / 93 5. Bexley 8 / 92 6. Blackheath & Bromley 2 / 61