The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Wood in line to defend her veterans title
Defending champion Sheena Wood (Aberdeen Ladies) will play former Scottish women’s amateur title-holder Elaine Moffat
(St Regulus) in the first semi-final of the Scottish Veteran Ladies’ Golf Association championship over the Lansdowne course in Blairgowrie today.
The other semi-final features Jennifer Bryans (East), beaten in last year’s final, and Carol Purves (Borders).
In yesterday afternoon’s quarterfinals Moffat beat Alison Bartlett (Royal Dornoch) by 5 and 4 while Wood beat Liz Stewart 5 and 4.
Bryans beat Sally Downs (Galloway) 7 and 6 and Purves beat Margaret McGregor (Dumfries) by 1 hole.
Mohammad Abu-Rezeq’s journey towards achieving his dream of competing in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics began in the Highlands yesterday when the Manchesterbased athlete completed a hat-trick of wins in the Baxters Loch Ness marathon.
The Jordanian athlete completed the course in 2hr 23min 56sec to finish well ahead of his closest challengers, then announced he is targeting next April’s London marathon where he hopes to achieve a fast enough time to gain selection to represent his country in Japan two years from now.
Abu-Rezeq’s time was the slowest of his three victories at Loch Ness but he was delighted with the result and feels he can run much quicker in future to gain Olympic selection.
He said: “The conditions were good today and it was a very nice race. I like this course so much, which is why I keep coming back here. It’s not an easy course and I know I can run much quicker.
“My big aim is to run for my country in the Olympic Games so I need to run under 2:18 at London, and I am sure I can do that.
“However I would like to go under 2:15 as that would give me a sponsor which would allow me to train properly for the games.”
Adam Holland (Tavistock AC) showed great strength over the final two miles to pull away from Aberdeenbased Kenyan athlete Isaiah Kosgei and take second in a personal best 2:24:24.
The Devon athlete, who warmed up for the marathon by taking top spot in the previous day’s Inverness parkrun 5km, said: “I am over the moon as that’s more than three minutes I’ve taken off my previous best time. I didn’t ease back for this as I did two half marathons last weekend, and the week before that I ran a 100km race.
“Next week I’ll be out doing a 100-mile race.”
He added: “Today was my 380th marathon or ultramarathon.
Kosgei, who was fifth last year, finished third to take top spot in the over-40 age group in 2:26:37.
It was important for the Kenyan to feature in the prize list as part of his reason for competing in the evnt was to raise money for the school which he founded in his homeland.
Fife AC’s Sheena Logan set a personal best of 2:51:11 to win the women’s race by finishing ahead of two-time previous champion Jenn Wetton (Central AC), who was competing nine months after giving birth to son Adam.