Great success at the Sussex Road Relays
Report for the junior athletes from Team Manager Jay Potton
The winter season finished as it started with road relays on tarmac. Like Aldershot back in September, we were blessed with sunny dry weather at Preston Park in Brighton on Saturday. In teams of three our u13 and u15 teams ran one mile and our u17 ran two miles. Spirits were high, face paint was everywhere and there was a real buzz to proceedings and PBs galore followed.
Team selection was challenging as we had absences due to Easter holidays and athletes with injuries and illness. Richard Carter’s u11 teams had already set a high bar with a Gold for the girls and a Bronze for the boys (looking good for the u13 teams in September!). Our u13G team continued the theme with a solid Silver out of 17 teams. The u13B were close in 4th and 9th out of 18 teams.
The u15B fielded their most runners all season with three full teams and a fourth with two runners, including the welcome addition of Frank who normally focuses on Javelin. Our A team were dominant, coming home with Gold and the fastest u15B runner of the day, George. We also came 6th and 11th out of 12 full teams. Our u15G A team secured 4th (with a very brave run from an injured and in pain Juliana C) and the B team held 7th out of 14 full teams.
The u17 teams ran at the same time as the Seniors and stepped up to 2 miles, or 2 laps. Our u17W team came a very respectable 6th having been only able to field 3 runners on the day. Then our u17M continued to dominate in the same way they have all winter season fielding three teams and coming home with two medals. The A Team had an almighty battle with Phoenix but in the end claimed victory with Gold, and Tom narrowly missing out on fastest runner of the day. The B Team came third on the day but took home Silver due to one of the runners in the 2nd placed team being from Surrey. The B Team were almost two minutes clear of the 4th placed team.
A great day at the office for our athletes. It was also great to see so many of our younger female athletes getting sub 6 minutes in the mile. Looking strong for next year!
I’ll sign off with my word of the day…speed! We have some fast runners in the club over 1 mile and 2 miles. Great to watch, great camaraderie. Lovely to see so many in red and black flying past me. And nice to see the smiles afterwards, and of course no mud!
Well done everyone, you did yourselves and your club proud, again!