Harriers up the field at Abbey
THERE was no time for sightseeing at the Age UK Leeds Abbey dash 10 kilometre race which also incorporated the annual England 10k road race championships.
Stockport were well up the field as usual in this hotly contested event which had a record turnout of over 8,600 finishers.
Patrick Martin saw off the majority of the opposition and subbed 30 minutes yet again to finish in eighth spot in 29:40.
He was only 28 seconds behind eventual winner Jonathan Mellor (29:12) of Liverpool Harriers while club mate and relative newcomer Hannah Griffiths did the ladies proud to finish well up the field in 36:04 and in the process knocking a full 90 seconds off her personal best time.
These athletes and more, including Olympic 10,000 metre finalist Ross Millington, along with Jack Morris and Jack Nixon, will be pushing hard for possible plane tickets to the European cross country championships in December.
The top six in each senior and junior men’s and women’s races receive automatic qualification at the British cross country trials at Liverpool’s Sefton Park with Hannah Griffiths for the seniors, together with Mollie Williams and Katy Whiteoak, representing the junior ladies later on in this month.
Bashir Hussain and Jackie Newton concluded their trip down under in Perth at the World Masters Athletics Championships and finally came up with the required race to ensure a medal came the way of Hussain.
His speciality event is the 3,000 metre steeplechase. He went in the over 50’s veteran class and pulled out all the stops to record a sweet third place finish to ensure receipt of the bronze medal.
The race was no picnic with Hussein almost taking an early bath into the water jump towards the end of the race but after steadying himself he was not going to be denied a medal and sprinted past Portugal’s Antonio Monteiro to ensure the third place finish in 11:04:94 to Monteiro’s fourth posting in 11:10:36.
So ended two weeks of intensive athletic competition and after some further sightseeing the intrepid pair will soon be returning to the UK.
The 46th annual Stockport Harriers’ sponsored primary schools cross country league got underway following on from the opening of the buildings complex at Woodbank Stadium with honorary starters for the first race being a joint enterprise between the mayor, Councillor Chris Gordon along with the ever popular Dr Ron Hill MBE being the 1970 commonwealth marathon champion.
Introductions were made of the honorary starters to the girls’ Years 3 and 4 competitors before they then went off at a lick for the first of four races with Ella Buckley of Pownall Green turning out easy winner in a time of 6:41.
There were also wins for Josh Garrone (Boys years 3 and 4 – 6:02), Jasmine Read (Girls years 5 and 6 – 10:26) and Luke Carrington (Boys years 5 and 6 – 10:16).
It did not go unobserved that the winning girl’s time subbed the boy’s equivalent time by a full ten seconds but the boys will no doubt be out to avenge this when the second meeting takes place on Saturday, 26th November.
T33 100 metre bronze paralympian Andy Small has been honoured with a further recognition to add to his Rio podium success and has received the Greater Manchester disabled achiever of the year award to cap off a brilliant season and he will soon be setting his stall out for 2017 which sees London hosting the World para championships at the Queen Elizabeth stadium in July which will no doubt be of great interest to the Stockport wheelchair racers of which he is an active member.
Notice is given of the annual general meeting of Stockport Harriers to take place at the Woodbank clubhouse at 8pm on Monday, 21st November to which all members are urged to attend.