Telford triumph
GREAT success came the way of several Stockport Harriers at the English schools combined events championships at Telford with the under 15s girls making a clean sweep of podium finishes.
Star billing went to Emily Misantoni, who rounded off her gruelling day of five events in the pentathlon with a scintillating 2:17 posting in the 800 metres event.
Coaching co-ordinator Joe Frost was justifiably proud of his young charges: “For the second year in a row, Stockport coaches produced more county athletes for Greater Manchester than all the other local clubs added together and it is an excellent sign of the strength of the multi – events coaching and development from within the Harriers at Woodbank Park”.
The remaining podium finishes in the girls’ under 15s pentathlon, along with Misantoni in first spot, were taken by Abigail Pawlett (2nd) and a highly deserved bronze medal by Daisy Worthington.
Amy Battle who went in the high jump competition, produced a great leap of faith to finish with a clearance and new personal best of 1.43 metres and will continue to do well next season and remains in the under 15s age group for 2018 which will help to increase her medalling prospects in the future.
Too many athletic events and not enough to cram them all in was the result as Team Stockport spread its resources between the Schools events in Telford and the Youth development league upper age group at Victoria Park, Warrington which resulted in several events for all the competing clubs not being contested.
However, both the boys and girls rallied to the cause, particularly for the boys with several doubling and trebling up in events.
Euan Benson in the under 20s event went in no less than four different field events and came second in the “A” string in all of them being the shot, discus, hammer and javelin.
Over on the track in the under 17s department, Stockport’s Emilio Ramirez made it a double win in the 100 and 200 metre “A” sprint events with times of 11.5 and 23.6 respectively and he then went on to help his colleagues by adding valuable points in the shot put arena with a best put of 10:81 to record a win for the “A” string competition with all the three aforementioned activities registering an AAA standard for his efforts.
For the girls, Katy Whiteoak and Hannah Richardson showed who’s boss in the under 20s middle distance events with wins in the 1500 metres (4.53.6) and 3000 metres (10.55.6) respectively.
At the shorter distances of both 200 and 300 metres, Stockport’s Natasha Harrison made it a double first in the “A” string and there was also a double first in the under 17s long jump with Bethan Murray taking the “A” event with ease (5.17).
In the “B” event Catherine Giller made easy work of her discipline to finish in a distance of 5.11 metres before providing support to her 4 x 100 metre team mates to finish the one lap circuit with a win for the team in a total time of 53.4 seconds.
Team Stockport eventually finished in third spot out of eight teams and will go into the last match at Blackpool on 23rd July with a three-point margin with 22 accumulated match points to currently top the leader board.
But there will be no safety until all is completed at Stanley Park with next placed Lancaster and Morecambe and also Leigh Harriers jointly on 19 match points after three events.
The annual Offerton 10 kilometre road race