The British Masters indoor athletics pentathlon Championships and Southern Master Masters open event at Lee Valley, London on 23rd February, was well supported by seven R&NAC athletes. All managed season bests; plus four British records and two national titles between them. This despite being hampered in their training due to the weather making jumping areas unusable for practice.
Our oldest competitor John Evans at a mere 85 years old, set the ball rolling with season’s bests in the 60m (11.51s) and 200m (42.74s), both a fraction off the national records, but then went on to set British and Welsh records in the long jump( 2.75m)and triple jump (5.83m).
Sally Hine carried on the records while competing in the British pentathlon championship W70,
Opening with a British record in the 60m hurdles (12.44s), and finishing with the British record for the pentathlon of 3674, breaking the previous record by over 500points. In between she had seasons best in the high jump (1.11m) , long jump (3.05m), shot (6.11m) and 800m (3:51.50s).
Dave Cowley competed in the M70 indoor pentathlon picking up the British title for 2020. His performances were; 60mH 11.32, long jump 3.78m, shot 9.58m, high jump 1.23m and 1000m 5:08.17 with an overall score of 3069pts.
The younger members were also in action; Adie Monk M40 setting a PB in the 60m of 8.10s,
Janelle Quinn W45 a PB in the 60m of 9.02 and seasons best in long jump (4.19m). Gemma Knight W35 set a seasons best in the 400m of 64.24s.
Finally Craig Christian had a good workout with 3 track events, PB in the 60m (7.97s), PBs (indoor) 200m (25.94) and 400m (59.04).
The following weekend 7 more R&NAC athletes travelled down to Lee valley to represent the Midlands in an inter area competitition. Angela Copson although not at her fittest, lead the W70 800m from start to finish, Sally Hine W70, covered the 60m in 10.30s finishing 1st (meeting record), winning the long jump with 3.10m, and finishing second in the shot with 6.16m . All seasons best, then the 2 of them combined and dropped down to the W60 to help win the 4x200m relay.
Dave Cowley improved his performances of the previous week, 3rd in the shot with 9.78m) and winning the high jump with 1.24m, and also running in the M70 winning relay team.
The rest of the ladies all competed in the W35-49 age group; Gemma was back with a PB in the 400m (63.1) and finishing in third place . Another return was Janelle in the long jump (4.32m) and triple jump (8.41m) both PBs indoors and placing her 4th in the rankings for both.
Sprinters Ellena Ruddock W40 200m (27.26s) and Karen Gomes W35 60m (8.28s). Their performances placing them 1st and 6th respectively in their age group rankings
Janelle, Ellena and Karen then carried the W35 relay team to a complete sweep of first places with relay members from R&NAC
The overall result of the meeting saw Midlands win the men’s and women’s trophy plus the overall trophy. The first time Midlands have managed a full house!!
