Team Bath’s men deliver strong results
THE growing strength of Team Bath AC’S men’s section was underlined by an impressive showing at the annual Midland Counties Short Stage Road Relay Championships.
Competing on the iconic course around Birmingham’s Sutton Park the senior squad booked their ticket for the National Championships in October’s with a highly creditable 14th against some of the very best clubs in the region.
In addition, the burgeoning masters section came within a whisker of making the medals in the veterans only event with a terrific fourth place overall.
“We had an excellent day,” said club endurance coach and team manager Paul King. “On top of the senior men A finishing a very worthy 14th the senior women A also finished a splendid 14th.
“The masters men team, however, put in a brilliant effort narrowly missing out on a podium place by seconds!
“So we now go to the National Road Relay Championships scheduled for Saturday 8th October again at Sutton Park.”
Dan Jones gave Team Bath a solid start on the highly competitive stage one and set the scene for team captain Aaron Pritchard and then John Howorth, easily running the club’s fastest time of the day as he dipped inside 19 minutes, to move up to 19th at the halfway point.
Aidan Daniel then clawed back another two places as did Dan Soltys to hand over to last stage runner Elliott Avis for the final stage in 15th place which he maintained with a solid run.
The B team placed 61st and a special mention for Otto Copping, who responded to the challenge of running stage one by beating his clubmate Jones to finish in 27th with a swift 19:02, the second fastest time of the day for the club.
The masters team fought tenaciously in the battle for honours and at halfway Peter Grist, who ran the fourth fastest time of the day, Stephen Rose and Phil King had put the club in third place.
Ewen Malloch maintained that but despite two strong runs by James Donald and Andrew Fook they could not hold off a late charge by Worcester AC who snatched away the bronze medals.
The women’s team were hovering outside the top 20 after the first three stages from Rachel Moon, Ella Treby and Creina O’shea but Amber Gascoigne then unleased a terrific last stage to gain 10 places and finish a splendid 14th.
Moon clocked the 19th fastest time of the day – and she was the fourth quickest runner on that final stage from over 300 runners taking part in the event so is clearly a terrific talent.
■ Also at Sutton Park Bath-based Max Davies made his championships debut for Bristol & West AC (he was previously a member of Avon Valley Runners) and ran a time that reminded everyone what a hugely talented young runner he is.
Davis tore around the course in a superb time of 17mins 46secs, the 10th fastest of the day, to put B&W into the silver medal positions at the halfway stage. His team eventually finished third.
■ Racing the Bristol 10k the following day Team Bath’s Freya Spruit finished 25th woman and first under 23 in a time of 38mins 38secs. Cath Dale had the honour of wearing her wellearned England Masters Vest for FV50 and finished in a time of 43:42. Team Bath AC: Henry Binks 36:50; Sidney Williams 42:35; Amy Glynn 43:08.
■ Brian Glynn opted for the half marathon distance and finished in 1:25:00.
■ Mark Mackintosh opted for the more exotic Belo Horizonte 9.5k road race in Brazil and the over 50 veteran clocked a time of 42:12.
■ Back to Europe and Isabel Davies continued her excellent triathlon season with a silver medal in the 25-29 age group at the European middle distance triathlon champs in Bilbao.
■ The Chronicle’s athletics coverage is sponsored by Running Bath