Title success for Meyer
Table tennis Athletics
The Maidstone Table
Tennis League Closed Championships take place at Cornwallis Academy this weekend.
Play starts at 9am on Saturday with the divisional and veteran events. The finals are scheduled for 3pm. Maidstone Working Men’s Club’s Martin Hewett is strong favourite in the over40s event, with Kings Hill’s Wayne Matthews and Wayne Youngs the main challengers. The largest divisional entry is for the Division 5 singles where Kings Hill’s Hugh O’Neil and Joe Boyle are hot favourites.
The men’s and women’s singles, doubles and mixed doubles start at 9am on Sunday, with finals at 2pm. Andy Norwood (Barming) and Wayne Matthews (Kings Hill) are the two to beat in the men’s singles, with Wayne Matthews (Kings Hill), Miro Danandzhiev (Coxheath) and defending champion Will Wrapson (MWMC) their main challengers.
Delyth North (TT Traders) is expected to win the ladies’ singles, with Jill Shipton (Kings Hill) a challenger.
Robert Meyer has topped the UK under-23 10k rankings as well as clinching the Kent CrossCountry League title.
The Medway & Maidstone AC runner went head to head with club-mate Tewelde Menges for the cross country title – just a point separating them ahead of the final meeting of the championship at Norman Park in Bromley.
Having run a superb 10k road race in 30min09sec the week before, Meyer decided to stamp his authority from the off. His fast start proved to be too strong not only for Menges, but for everyone else.
He developed a clear early lead and won the race with a comfortable 30-second margin. Menges finished fourth, still good enough to leave him in a strong silver medal position. In addition to the two top awards, the club took more overall league medals with Justin Lane (M40 silver), Neill Wright (M40 bronze), Barry Royden (M50 gold) and Alun Rodgers (M50 bronze) all featuring.
Out of the 438 runners competing in the league over the season, M&M had more top finishers with Marley Godden fourth, Mark Wilkins sixth and Jack Crossley eighth.
Out of 26 competing teams, M&M finished second in both the four-to-score and 12-to-score team competitions, a repeat of last season. On the day, the club were second in both.
Following Meyer and Menges, Ben Tyler had his best race for some time, finishing eighth, followed by Tom Collins in 10th, closing the 4-to-score team. The 12-to-score team was completed by Wilkins, Godden, Crossley, Chris Rampling, Neill Wright, Barry Royden, Daniel St Martin and Justin Lane. Further back-up was provided by Alun Rodgers, Adam Featherstone, Gareth Williams, Sean Rodwell and Darren Wright.
Harry Collins, who normally has a top-50 finish, missed the start by 10 minutes and ended up in 127th after passing over 100 runners!
The ladies were missing a few runners due to injury but still put on a good display.
Taryne McPherson finished in 21st, followed closely by Jenny Fowler (23rd) and Bernadette (59th) to close the 3-to-score. Vanessa Vander (66th), Cat Rodwell (97th) and Kat Ford (108th) completed the 6-to-score. Overall in the final team placings the ladies finished an impressive third place in the 3-to-score out of 21 teams and fourth in the 6-to-score out of 15 teams.
Medway & Maidstone have also had some outstanding results in recent road races, with Meyer starring once more. At the Chichester 10k, one of the top UK road races, Meyer was 12th in a superb time of 30.09, leaving him top of the UK under-23 rankings.
Wilkins finished second to Eritrean International Abel Tsegay at the Canterbury 10-miler. Wilkins’ time of 55.51 ranks him 12th in the M35 rankings and is just 44 seconds off his personal best, set over 11 years ago.
Jemma Whyman was fourth female in a time of 67.07, a PB of nearly two minutes. Kat Ford was 534th female finisher.
Mark Penny won the Maidstone parkrun on Saturday in a time of 18min12sec.
Craig Barden took second place in 18.12 and junior Finlay Lodge ran a personal best of 19.07 for third.
First woman home, once again, was Charlotte Bates in 21.12, followed by Kirstin Sung (21.18) and Sharon Barnett (21.49). After being pipped last week by Sue James, Paul McAuliffe was the leading age-graded runner. He scored 78.88% with his time of 21.04, finishing 24th in a field of 452 runners. Andrew Theedom ran a PB of 18.16 to win the Malling parkrun ahead of Matthew Green, whose time of 18.35 made him the best age-graded performer with a score of 80.63%. Third place went to Alexander Holmes (19.02). Ali Farrall (20.28) was the leading lady, followed by Louise Johnson (23.07) and Charlotte Crouch (23.15 PB). There were 375 runners.