Page 11 - Summer2014Gazette
P. 11

Athletics Report                     9

Senior Women
in the UK Athletics League 2015

  Our senior women’s team        weddings, Saturday jobs,         place was not enough to avoid
  track and field competed in    higher and lower level event     relegation.
  the Premier Division this      clashes all contributed to       Many thanks to all those
  summer. Unfortunately it       making this a tough day. Of      who officiated and supported
  was a case of what should      the few there several were       and to Tim for helping and
  have been rather than what     competing at a much higher       coaxing. Most of all though,
  was. We were unable to         level than they were used to     thanks to those who turned
  field a strong enough team     but the whole team did their     out particularly those unsung
  to really challenge at any of  best. Shaunagh Brown put in      heroes who had to compete
  the 3 fixtures. Those who      another strong performance       outside their comfort zones
  did compete did their best     earning a 2nd, 3rd and 4th in    eg Carole Penlington,
  and there were some excellent  her field events. At least the   Jenny Neale, Natalie Jones,
  individual performances and    sun shone but we came 8th.       Charlotte Rhule, Abigail
  lots of heroes who did it for                                   Kingston etc.
  the team.                      Our last fixture at Eton         The future is simple to
                                                                  evaluate. If we can get out
Our first fixture was a tough    at which we really needed to     our strongest team we should
one in Edinburgh                 excel, was going well until      breeze back into the Premier
It was a terrible day; so        2 days before the event.         Division next year otherwise
windy that the pole vault        Unfortunately several key        it could mean relegation again.
had to be cancelled. Our         athletes dropped out through     Shaunagh, Kelly, Dina,
100/200 team of Shannon          injury etc so once again it      Cheriece, Viv, Rachel and
and Cheriece Hylton, Viv         gave those there a lot to do.    Jazz, Carole and Jenny, Tim,
Olatunji and Jazz Crawford       Shaunagh got two 2nds and a      Supporters and Officials.
took almost maximum points       3rd in her throws and second     Records broken.
and Shaunagh Brown was           claimer Kelly Grant ran a
strong in her field events.      great 2nd place 1500. Kelly                        Steve Hollingdale
However we did not have          and Niamh Bridson-Hubbard
sufficient strength in other     put in consistently good
events and could only manage     performances in the middle
6th out of the 8 teams on the    distances. Dina Asher-Smith
day. Thanks to the Griffiths,    and Serita Solomon were
Brands, Lawries and Cordells     able to join us and won their
who came up and supported/       events comfortably. Dina
officiated despite the gale.     broke the 200m league record
Special thanks to Tim Soutar     she set last year with 22.72.
who helped me in my first        The highlight of the day was a
event as team manager.           ‘scratch’ team of Serita, Dina,
Next up was Birmingham           Cheriece Hylton and Viv
and it proved even tougher       Olatunji winning the 4 x 100
to get out a decent team for     in 45.15, a new club record
this fixture. Exams, injuries,   and over a second ahead of
                                 nearest rivals. This match
                                 was quite close in the bottom
                                 half but unfortunately our 7th
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