90th Birthday Medals at the National Road Relays.

October  5th,  Chelmsford Athletic Club`s 90th `Birthday`  did this go unnoticed?

Well the junior girls teams certainly made a gallant attempt to give a golden glow to the occasion. Most notably the under 15 year teams in the English Road Relay championships in Birmingham`s   Sutton Park. Oh so nearly gold as Ezrah Harrold with 13m 11s on the opening lap came through in second place, just one second down on the leader. Incidentally these were to prove the fastest laps throughout the race contested by by the 67 teams lining up on the starting line. Following home came Ava King with 13m 30s - so two teams in the top three. Lap two and Aldershot moved into second place with Chelmsford`s two teams following them through via Erin Kelly (13m 44s) and Lily Sanford (14m 07s). Now Aldershot took the lead to win in 40m 07s but Jorga March with 5th best time of the race bringing CAC home in 40m 14s, or just seven seconds down. One can see from times that had Ava King`s time had been in the `A` team there could have been gold to celebrate          that 90th year. Great solid times found the `B`team holding onto 4th place with Hetty Harrison on 14m 35s.

Good showing in the under 13 and under 17 year age groups, in the former Isla Kehoe timed at 14m 30s – tenth best in the race came through in fifth place, Beatrix Cooke 15m 07s placed sixth and Orla Martin on 16m 02s gave a final creditable position for a national event with eighth placing. In the under 17`s Lottie Wilkin with 13m 43s came through in sixth spot - a position retained by Sienna Shipton (14m 25s) whilst on the final stage Daisy Stollery with 13m 48s gave a final position of fifth.  

Report written by Roy Meadowcroft

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Many Medals for our Multi Eventers.

What surely should have been the last weekend of the summer season CAC had members involved with two Combined Events meetings - the English Schools Competition held at Stoke and the Eastern Counties Championship staged at Peterborough.

In the schools meeting Essex were to win both the junior and intermediate competitions and in these Jeremy Andersen placing ninth in the junior event helped Essex to a margin of 106 points over Kent. In the intermediate age group Daniel Brown was first of the Essex team with 8th place and Arseni Handzil completed the trio being 22nd and with a combined points total of 13079 clear of Cheshire by 406 points. Best individual placing by an Essex athlete came from the senior boys Decathlon with Sam Wright placing fourth. Unfortunate for Sam the high jump event in which he has a superior best of the season over his opponents resulting no doubt to the loss of a podium placing.

 In the junior girls the Essex team consisted of three Chelmsford members, Lily Hartman recently joining from Basildon placed 9th with Chelsea Clarke 12th and Alicija Yalaju 15th and their combined points tally fell just 63 short of Yorkshire who took the title. In the intermediate girls class Milana Thorpe in 8th place was leading Essex competitor with the team third behind Hampshire and Greater Manchester.

At Peterborough three medals were won. Harry Lee was the pick with gold in the under 17 men whilst Saya Saunders having personal bests at 75 metre hurdles and 800 metres was to pick up the silver medal in the under 15 girls event. At under 13`s Shindra Ayo-Adeyemo put in a pb with her shot putt and this aided to another personal best with a combined score of 2149 points and third place here AND a ranking of 13th in the UK.

Report written by Roy Meadowceoft

A Very Successful September for CAC.

With the Olympic Games dominating the  fixtures the Southern Inter-Counties Championships this year have taken a much later date with the events being /staged at Oxford. Although the number of Chelmsford athletes numbered only five in the under 20 year age group there proved to be five medals gained. Maegan Hopkins topped the chart with two `gold's` winning both the shot putt and discus whilst Gregory Martin and William Nuttall took the 1500 metres and  3000m steeplechase titles. Completing the medallists Archie Simms finished second in the 400m hurdles event in a close finish. Rosie Townley completed our competitors with sixth in the long jump.

With the unfortunate clash with the Eastern Young Athletes League Final and Chelmsford seeking to retain the trophy this was treated as the priority hence only four athletes from the under 15 and 17 age groups contested these championships. Sophie  Catchpole was to win the under 17 year 300m hurdles whilst at the same age level Harry Dove finished ninth in the long jump. At under 15 level Francesca  Phillips ran a personal best of 4m 53.48s for the 1500 metres whilst Lily Hartman after winning her heat in the 300m placed fifth in the final.

I cannot finish this report without giving congratulations to Didi Okoh on first her selection for the Great Britain Paralympics Team  and then on her performance in the 100 metres which contributed to that medal haul of 124 from the team… Now fast forward four years let’s look to upgrading that medal to `gold` in Los Angeles.      

Report written by Roy Meadowcroft