Winner’s aims for next year
JOE Carter is a talented young athlete bursting with ambition and big dreams.
A blistering end to the season will see the 17-year-old Team Bath AC sprinter top the 2021 South West Under-20 Men’s Rankings for the 100m while placing third in the 200m.
Those results not only earned him the prize for the latest Running Bath/ Bath Chron performance of the month competition, which he collected from the shop in the High Street this week, but also provided the launch pad for a big winter of training.
So, understandably Carter and his coach Julia Alexander are relishing the prospect of 2022 with ambitious targets for both the indoor and outdoor seasons.
“My aim this indoor season is to break seven seconds for 60m,” said Carter, whose current personal best stands at 7.34 secs set almost two years ago.
“I have improved quite dramatically since then, particularly in strength and power while this is the first winter that I have been going to the gym regularly so I am a lot fitter.
“I will open my season at Lea Valley on December 5th and will aim to qualify for the UK Age Group Championships.
“If I can really run some fast times then I would love to qualify for the British Senior Championships. That is quite an aspiration as there are a lot of top quality sprinters in Britain and only a certain amount qualify but it is something to aim for.”
Carter can’t be faulted for aiming high, especially after a summer in which he improved his lifetime bests at both 100m and 200m.
In the 100m he went from 11.11secs in 2020 to 10.9 secs, plus a windassisted 10.88 secs – albeit just a fraction over the legal 2.0mps limit – while in the 200m he scorched from 22.55 secs as a final year under-17 sprinter to a legal 22.06 secs and a swift but windy (2.7mps) 21.79.
“It was a good summer considering I virtually had no winter training at all due to the lockdown,” added Carter.
“My coach did send me sessions to do and while I was committed for a month after that it tailed off so when the summer started I had no idea how the season would go.
“Running under 11 seconds for the first time was a great moment but so annoying when I twice had good times just 0.1 over the legal limit.
“I was very encouraged with my last race of the season (Yeovil Games on September 18) when I ran 10.94 secs into a headwind with a slight hamstring niggle, which then forced me to take time off.
“After that I thought there is no reason why I shouldn’t be looking at 10.6/7 secs next summer with a good winter behind me.
“The really big goal would be the World Under 20 Championships and to qualify for that I would need to run 10.4 secs. That is a big chunk off my current best but that is motivating me this winter, which is the first time I’ll be in the gym regularly.
“We’ll see how it goes but I’m excited.”
Whatever happens in 2022, it won’t be lack of ambition or determination that will hold back Carter.
IT was a quiet weekend of live action, but Tom Hutchison headed to Gravesend, Kent, for the British Masters 10k Road Championships and just missed a place on the podium as he finished fourth in 41 mins 32 secs.
TEAM Bath’s Joe Mobbs bounced back from his disappointing Brighton marathon to run a PB of 39mins 34 secs in the Chilly 10k at the Castle Combe motor racing circuit on Sunday. Mobbs’ previous best was 41:30 at the Corsham St George’s 10k in September.
Just ahead of Mobbs was clubmate Stylianos Asimakopoulos in 29th (39:42) with Clinton Montague 60th (42:42). Top club woman was junior India Ibbotson, who clocked 43:37 to carve 1 min 26 secs off her 2019 best.
TEAM Bath’s Emily Griffiths finished on the podium at the Avebury 8 miles event promoted by Marlborough Running Club.
The athletics coverage in the Chron is sponsored by Running Bath.