INSIDE TRACK Below-Parr finish for Chris after tight race
DRAMATIC FINALE TO BLAYDON
DESPITE the absence of a number of leading athletes the 38th running of the Blaydon Race will go down in history as one of the most significant.
Past winners Peter Newton, Jonny Taylor, Aly Dixon and Sonia Samuels were all absentees leaving the door open for new champions to be crowned.
However, with a record 4,400 facing the starter in Collingwood Street, there was always going to be the chance of something memorable to happen.
Little did anyone know that halfan-hour or so after the start the race would finish in dramatic fashion.
Newton was crowned the Blaydon champion last year and the year before that while Taylor, a Morpeth team-mate, won the race in 2015 so it was hard to predict who would be first across the line this time round.
There were a number of athletes capable of winning but who would get it right on the day was anyone’s guess.
The only other former champion in the line-up was Ian Hudspith, also of Morpeth, and while he has a record second to none having won in 2009 and had never finished outside the top six over a period of 11 years, at 47 years of age it would take a super-human effort by him to make it to the top of the podium once more.
So, once the race got under way, it was southern visitor John Graham who turned up the heat, taking the lead immediately with a ‘catch-meif-you-can’ injection of pace.
For some spectators it may have looked suicidal for he led through the first mile in 4min 38secs and then ran the second mile even quicker in 4:23!
It wasn’t surprising in the early stages that many of the fancied contenders were struggling to keep in touch though Chris Parr was determined not to let the Newham and Essex Beagles runner dominate proceedings completely.
Approaching half-way the Gateshead athlete moved ahead for the first time and for a moment it was Graham who had to play second fiddle as a gap of 10-metres or so immediately opened up.
The margin, at most, was around 15 metres throughout the rest of the race until the approach to the finish area at Shibdon Playing Fields.
It looked as though the region would be celebrating another fine victory that is until around 150 metres to go a stroke of misfortune struck the leader.
Parr slowed down considerably and when the grass section was reached he was overtaken first by Graham and then by Morpeth’s Carl Avery, before he managed to stagger across the line in third place.
It was Parr’s debut in the Blaydon despite being one of the region’s leading endurance runners for many years having won English Schools’ titles on the track and numerous successes on the country so to have victory snatched away was a cruel way to end his first Blaydon encounter.
However, after attention, he quickly recovered much to everyone’s relief, especially race director Lynn Craig.
“It was such a shame for Chris for I was all set to see him receive the winner’s trophy,’’ said Craig yesterday, after tying up a number of loose ends at the end of an exhausting few days. I was sure he was going to win for he looked all over a winner as we came off Blaydon Bridge but unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. Thankfully, he quickly recovered and I’ve no doubt he’ll have had his trainers on a few times since his ordeal. Everyone now knows that Chris is capable of winning the Blaydon and I’m sure if he’s back next year then he’ll be one of the ones to beat.’’
After that the women’s contest proved to be a much straight-forward affair with victory going to new Wallsend recruit Danielle Hodgkinson who eased into the lead around the two-mile point before going on to win comfortably.
With Dixon and Samuels, who have both been named in the GB team to contest the marathon at the European Championships in August, sidelined through injury and illness, Hodgkinson took control to see off the attention of Stockport.