A busy week of action sees R&N impress in events across the region
Rugby & Northampton’s athletes produced a number of personal-best performances in Wolverhampton last week, securing another superb second-place team finish in Round Two of Midland League Division One.
The team travelled to the West Midlands looking to build on their performance in Round One – when they also finished as runners-up – and, despite having a large number of athletes unavailable, the team performed magnificently to consolidate second spot in the league standings.
In the previous stage in Rugby, Birchfield Harriers finished 91 points clear to take first place. This time around, R&N made huge progress to finish just 16.6 points behind the Birmingham-based club, courtesy of a string of fine displays.
Two of those came from Jacob Allen, who made the journey back from university in London to claim victory in both the 1500 and 3000 metres with a dominant display of front running. Allen earned a 12-second win over 1500m, posting a time of three minutes, 54.1 seconds, and then ran double the distance in 8:30.50 for a second success.
The team got off to a flying start thanks to Craig Murch, who won the hammer with a throw of 63.34 metres, followed by young pole-vaulters Zoe Gibbs and Ailsa Maclean who took third and joint-first respectively in their league debuts. Gibbs recorded a PB of 2.10m in the ‘A’ category, while Maclean’s 1.90 in the ‘B’ event was also her best-ever effort.
Molly Barnett (16.0) led the way among the female athletes with a comfortable victory in the 100m hurdle events, finishing over two seconds ahead of her nearest competitor.
The R&N men put in a dominant display with victories for Adam Wright in the 800m in 1:53.9 – securing his qualification for the ESAA championships in the process – and John Moreland, whose winning discus throw of 39.64m rounded off the day and confirmed second spot for the team.
A week later and the athletes returned to the Midlands, this time for the Midland Counties U20/Senior Championships in Birmingham, where Wright had that winning feeling once more as he took the 800m gold in 1:54.23.
There was also success for Luke Townsend who fought off the competition to grab gold in the 400m-hurdles, crossing the line in 57.86, while another number of athletes picked up PBs on their way to medals.
Around the track, Jacob Allen(2nd – 3:51.71) and Clinton Osoba-George (3rd – 21.83) produced their best performances over 1500m and 200m respectively to secure their places on the podium. In the field, Jessica Hull leaped 5.21m to finish as runnerup in the long jump, while Megan Exley’s throw of 37.64m earned her silver in the javelin.
Osoba-George also picked up a PB over 100 metres with a time of 10.86, a feat matched by Zachary Stapleton in 10.91 as the pair finished fourth and fifth in the sprint.
Rounding off a busy schedule was the senior and veteran men’s teams, who moved to the top of the East Midlands Grand Prix standings with victory in Banbury.
The club triumphed in both categories with Daniel Mould achieving another personal best over five miles, posting a time of 27:49 to finish sixth overall and lead the club home for the third successive race.
The winning veteran squad was fronted by John Gercs in 12th position (28:36), which gave him a win in the M45 section, while Jonathan Burke (29:21) and Iain Botheroyd (29:23) finished 22nd and 23rd respectively, with Botheroyd claiming fifth spot among the M45s. Mike Andrews (37th – 30.05) and Terry Egan (45th – 30.36) completed the veteran team, earning respective positions of second in the M40 category and fifth in the M50.
Alistair McDonnell crossed the line in 31st place in a time of 29:42 – moving him up to second place in the individual senior rankings – while Valerie Cross now leads the overall standings in the F65 category, recording 49:34 to clinch third place on the night.
