Track and Field
ENGLISH SCHOOLS COMBINED EVENTS
Track & Field season concluded with the English Schools Combined Events Championship at Stoke. A huge event with over 200 athletes doing combined events – pentathlon, heptathlon, decathlon. The weather marred the great event, with a long and heavy thunderstorm causing some events to be abandoned, and much of the weekend rainy. 10 athletes qualified from our club and they really dug in to overcome the conditions and battle for their result.
It was an unhappy start as Isaac Henson had a bad injury in his second event and unfortunately had to withdraw, in this his final event as a schools athlete after many National Schools Championships. We wish Isaac a speedy recovery.
The second day saw great success for the club athletes, with Frances Hogg claiming the silver medal in the senior heptathlon (also her final schools event), and Esme Pounder 6th – both superb all round performances. They led North Yorkshire to a win in the team event.
In the Junior Girls pentathlon, the club team (representing North Yorkshire) won the Inter County team event. Headed by a great 2nd place for Carys Francis, only 9 points (in 3200) behind the winner. Holly Nash placed 15th, Juliette Macquin-Jones 19th and Sophia Horsfall-Samb 25th. Also a club athlete Talia Northcott finished 5th (for Humberside). This means the club had 2nd, 5th, 15th, 19th, 25th in a National Championship.
Carys Francis has achieved her first ever international vest having qualified for the England team for an indoor international in November. Congratulations to Carys and her coach Craig Pounder.
The English Schools Combined Events has been going 36 years, and Frances and Carys are now the highest placed North Yorkshire athletes ever. in 36 years North Yorkshire has won 3 team titles. This year we won 2 more, led by club athletes.
Holly’s 15th in the Junior Girls is a specially recognised result – the position of Jessica Ennis in this event at this age.
In the Inter Girls heptathlon, Lucy Gilbertson finished a very good 12th, doing particularly well in the opening hurdles, 8th in what is a very high standard event in girls combined events, and a good final event the 800m to win her heat and move from 20th up to 12th.
Elliott Moon finished a valiant 30th, suffering from a heavy cold and hit by the cancellation of the 800m through the weather which would have been a very profitable event for him.
In the North East Open Pentathlon at Jarrow, Imogen Bind finished 4th, going over 2000 points for the first time, and winning the hurdles and high jump.
Congratulations to all athletes and coaches!
Road Racing
The club had three top ten finishes in Saturday’s North of England Road Relay Championships that were held in late summer sunshine at Blackpool’s Stanley Park.
The senior men came 8th as they achieved another top ten finish following on from their 7th place last year. Angus McMillan ran another strong opening leg as he ‘won’ the first leg after a ding dong battle round the track at the end with Clayton Le Moor’s Ethiopian Birukaduna Kebede. Gus’ time of 16.04 for the 5.6k leg turned out to be the 3rd fastest of the day. Tommy Shaw (17.04) ran the club’s 2nd fastest time on the next leg as the club battled to hold off the usual suspect in the team race. Dan Cheeseman (17.30) in his first ‘big’ race since re-joining the club ran a good 3rd leg with James Tucker (17.12), Adam Bateman (17.32) maintained the club’s position inside the top ten. Simon Bolland-Cage had a good battle to beat the last leg runner from Vale Royal as the club finished in a great 8th place. The club completed a B team for the first time in the event as they came 13th B team and 57th overall in a field of 110 finishers.
The men’s and women’s under 17 teams came 6th and 7th respectively as both conducted themselves well in competitive races. The men’s under 17 team of Isaac Stabler (10.01), Samuel Dickinson (10.07) and Cole McAndrew (10.06) all ran remarkably similar times for the 3.2k leg that was used in the junior races as they comfortably finished inside the top ten whilst not quite being able to get into contention for a medal. The under 17 men also had B and C teams competing as the B team was 4th B team and 22nd overall whilst the C Team was first C team and 28th team out of the 35 finishers. The under 17 women’s team achieved their top ten finish differently as they moved through the field after a competitive first leg with Isabel Madden (11.54), Kate Setchell (12.26) and Sophie Robertson-Dover (11.39) all running well for the 3.2k lap.
On Sunday Allan Scott and John Lewis ran in the local 10k trail race that was held at Sutton on the Forest just north of York. Allan Scott came an excellent 4th place in 39.11 and won the vet 45 age group with John Lewis running 45.26 for 28th place.
Parkrun
19 runners from the club did parkrun over the weekend. Charlotte Grieve achieved the rare feat of a female runner crossing the line first as she ran 18.23 at Roundhay Park. There were also first places for Imogen Brown (20.31 at Dalby Forest) and Lucy Davey (21.10 at Wetherby) with Tim Pattison (17.42 at Isabel Trail in Stafford) and Hannah Lovett (19.51 at Heslington) coming 2nd. There were junior age group wins for Wilson Moisey-Smith, Josh Reid, Bethany Ellerker, Rafael Palmer with veteran age group wins for Steve Wright, Dave Lancaster and Mike Raynes. Noah Stipetic and Marianne Lowson were the first boy and girl at the York Junior parkrun.