Weekend Round Up 30th -31st January.
For those of you old enough to remember ‘The Magical Mystery Tour’ its latter day equivalent was less magical but equally mysterious. Owing to the marvel of Geo Position Satellites our coach driver found himself, and us, several miles from where we should be, so the logical conclusion was to jettison those athletes involved in the first race and let them trust to homing instincts to arrive at the start. Those of us remaining on the coach settled back to familiarise ourselves with the less well known quarters of Hampstead Heath.  We eventually disgorged the remaining athletes close to the start /finish area, fractionally ahead of the u15 boys team which we abandoned earlier. Having pitched the tent, we were very politely asked to move! So with a trusty parent on each leg we did a rather unconvincing impersonation of a giant tortoise but re-pitched on the opposite side of the course, much to the confusion of those out warming up.
Trials and tribulations behind us the youngsters proceeded to demonstrate just what a talented crop we have. Lachlan Wellington renewing his battle with friend and rival Zak Mohammed from Southampton came out second best this time, but I’m sure these two will be trading places many times in future years, two very talented youngsters. Not far off the pace Jacob O’Hara came home in 6th place with Steven Cross and Josh Goldfinch making up the scoring team that finished in 6th place (29 teams finished)
In the next race another familiar battle, our own dynamic duo of Saffron Moore and Nicole Ainsworth these two have been trading positions all season. This time Nicole pulled out all the stops and came home a very clear winner, with Saffron fourth. Not surprisingly the scoring team of Nicole, Saffron, Charlotte Bullard and Ellie O’Neill finished in a very creditable 5th position. (34 teams finished) I know not everyone was in the peak of health so a very satisfying result.
In the under 15 girls… well what can you say? The term race implies rivals but when you finish a minute ahead of the field, as Josie Czura did, race is hardly the word. It was a textbook display on how to run a cross country race in trying conditions. It’s an innate skill and Josie’s mature execution allied to well-honed talent meant there was only ever going to be one conclusion to this ‘race’.  Anya Pigden, Bo Sansom and Mia Billins completed the team scoring positions, just outside of the medals in fourth place.
These are just the highlights for a fuller rundown of results; http://www.hampshireathletics.org.uk/results/2016/20160130-seaaxc-women.html
Some excellent individual performances and teams so close. Our aim must be to tweak those teams and start crowding the podium steps.
Elsewhere our explosive athletes after frantic activity ‘on the boards’ since the New Year seem to be drawing breath only Tom Farres and Harry Pocock in action at the London games. Tom took bronze in the pole vault with a leap of 4.60m narrowly missing out on a 4.75 p.b. Harry’s 400m 51.60 was way off his season best so I suspect there’s a story there.
Another of our athletes in fine form is Tom McSwayne, having taken 2nd place in the u20m county cross country championships, 3rd in the Stubbington 10km road race, Tom has just run 4.02.64 for 1500 in the Welsh indoor championships in Cardiff.
If I’ve missed any performances please let me know.