Friday Night under the Lights 5k, Battersea Park (Fri. 15th Mar.)
It was a fantastic weekend for some of our club runners with a number achieving 5k personal bests. First up was Arthur Roux and Bobby Babaker at Battersea Park. Arthur came away with at time of 15:21 with Bobby only a handful of seconds behind with 15:26. Arthur then went onto race the following day in Leicester.
ESAA English Schools XC Championships, Pontefract (Sat. 16th Mar.)
Congratulations to the clubs young athletes, Amelia Lawrence (SG), Celia Yeatman (JG), Olly Buck (IB) and Aniket Iyengar (IB) who were selected and raced for London Schools at this year's English Schools Cross Country Championships in Pontefract.
Kent County Indoor Championships, Lee Valley (Sat. 16th/Sun. 17th Mar.)
This meeting signifies the end of the domestic indoor program and has often been a happy hunting ground for the club. This year was certainly as good, if not our best ever, reports Mick Bond, with a medal tally of 14 gold, 3 silver and 8 bronze.
Sprints: In the 60m events the club’s sprinters took an unprecedented five out of the eight titles on offer, whilst over 60m hurdles we took three out of eight wins along with a silver and two bronzes. Omari Markland-Montgomery took the senior men’s 60m title in 6.80s just 1/100th of a second outside his lifetime PB. Divine Akinlolu was next quickest winning the Under 20 men’s 60 in 7.04s with Javan Gordon not far behind in 7.10s for silver.
Hans Nmaju won both the 60m and 60m hurdles titles in the U17 men's in 7.15s and 8.37s respectively. Lily Gayle couldn’t quite achieve the same double winning the U17 women's 60m hurdles in 8.84s but just missed out on the medals in the 60 flat running 8.06s, though her differential (hurdles minus flat time) was better than Hans’ – 0.78 vs 1.22!
Nia Thomas did the opposite to Lily winning the 60m flat but finishing third in the hurdles . Times were 8.16s and 9.30s so a differential of 1.14.
Zavier Brathwaite set a new PB of 8.51s to run away with the U15 boys 60m final. Doyin Aderinto was third in the senior women’s 60m in 7.69s.
Amira Mohammed-Hassan made up for getting disqualified in last year’s final with a win in the senior women’s 60m hurdles with Victory Ogbah making it a Cambridge one two. Keziah Olaleye took bronze in the U20 women’s hurdles despite spraining her ankle in warm up whilst younger brother Elijah managed two bronzes over the weekend - U17 men’s 60 hurdles behind Hans and 400m flat the latter with a big PB of 52.00s.
Five smiling hurdlers with their medals. Left to right Gabby Noyce, Keziah Olaleye, Victory Ogbah, Lily Gayle and Amira Mohammed-Hassan.
Distance Events: Over the longer distances there were wins for Celia Allen in the U15 girls 800m in 2:31.52s and Meredith Cummings in the U15 girls 1500m in 5:10.50s. Despite turning 39 two weeks before the event Chris Louden continues to improve setting a new 1500m PB of 4:03.10s to take silver in the senior men’s 1500m. The 1500’s were very rewarding with Monty Brown winning silver in the U15 boys event (PB of 5.10.50s, Celia Yeatman bronze in the U15 girls (PB of 5:15.14s) and Brett Baker bronze behind Chris in the senior men’s event (4:16.39s). Joe White added to the medal tally with a bronze in the U15 boys 800m in 2:21.41s.
In the walks it was two wins out of two as Hannah Hopper won the senior women’s 2000m event in a championship best of 9:45.6s and Luc Legon won the men’s event in 8:53.45s.
Field Events: Daniel Obike improved his high jump PB with a leap of 1.85m to win gold in the U17 boys event whilst Gabby Noyce had a busy weekend winning shot gold along with high jump and hurdles bronze. Natalie Mann put 8.05m to pick up bronze in the senior women’s shot.
SportsShoes Podium Festival, Leicester Cycle Circuit (Sat. 16th Mar.)
On Saturday it was the turn of the ladies to shine at the SportsShoes Podium Festival held on the New College Cycle Circuit in Leicester. Holly Dixon dipped under 16 minutes for the first time since 2021 recording a time of 15:58 which also betters her own club record. Lara Atkinson also produced an excellent run reducing her PB from 17:35 to 17:18.
Bath Half-Marathon (Sun. 17th Mar.)
Caroline Ford made a debut over the half-marathon in Bath recording a time of 1:22:07 to finish 254th and 17th women, in a field of nearly five and half thousand runners.
