Runner at his sizzling best
FRESH from collecting his prize as the Running Bath/bath Chron performance of the month winner, sprinter Joe Carter opened his season with a sizzling personal best on the boards.
Competing at the Lee Valley Open meeting in London, Carter twice smashed his 2020 best of 7.34secs, first clocking 7.10secs in the first round and then 7.04secs in his second race of the day.
“It was an excellent run and a very good opener, absolutely,” said coach Julia Alexander.
“Joe needs four or five races to get the legs going again as he hasn’t run at 60m for quite a while (January 2020), missing all last winter, so this was all about brushing off the cobwebs.
“Joe has been going to the gym for the first time this winter and the strength and conditioning work will certainly help him.
“I think he is going to have a good year and now it is onto the Christmas Classic in Cardiff on December 19.”
Also from Alexander’s coaching group, Dominic Murray and Charlie Staddon travelled to the capital and were rewarded with PBS.
Murray ran 7.24secs in the 60m and 8.78secs in his favoured 60m hurdles while Staddon notched up PBS of 8.88secs in the under-17 sprint hurdles and 39.71secs in the 300m.
Also on the indoor circuit, Femi Akinbobola, representing Cardiff Met University against Birmingham University, opened his campaign with PBS of 7.13secs at Cardiff, shaving 0.8secs off his 2020 best and 35.96secs in the 300m.
In addition, team-mates Jake Cover and Joel Mattacks ran PBS of 7.28secs and 7.38secs respectively in the 60m.
Back outdoors, Team Bath had a strong presence at the popular Bromham Christmas Pud 10k road race in Wiltshire with both Dan Soltys and Freya Spruit making the podium as the club swept the board in the team competition.
Soltys pushed eventual winner Jake Stephens from Chippenham Harriers all the way in a hard-fought men’s race with only eight seconds covering the top three on the line.
With solid support from Josh Taylor and Matt Wells in seventh and eighth respectively, the men claimed the team prize. Likewise Spruit led Jenny Carter and Creina O’shea to success in the women’s race and she also won the prize as top under-20 runner.
There was also further age group success for Ella Treby, Simon Brace, Tom Hutchison, Jenny Carter, Cath Dale, Ilana Wigfield and Alison Vuagniaux rounding off a good day for the club.
■ The athletics coverage in the Chron is sponsored by Running Bath.