County Champs Report (part 1)
Middle Distance squad report
There were some outstanding performances over the county Championship weekend, with the squad returning a record haul of Gold medals, 13 in total, with a total medal count of 23. The County Champs held at the traditional Corby AC venue was rearranged due to Covid for the final week in July and while the rearranged date suited most, 5 of the squad who qualified for English schools were not able to compete due to prioritisation of Championship events at this stage of the season.
The completion proved to be a great platform for the younger members of the squad to take centre stage with double Gold medal winning performances for U13’s Jemima Davey, Jess Lamb, and recent new addition U11 Ollie Smith.
Jemima Davey competing at the Cambs County Championships cruised to a fantastic victory in the U13G 800m, breaking the 25 year old Championship best performance in the process by over 5 seconds with a comfortable 2:22.28, some 4 seconds of her recently set new club record. Davey also won the 200m Gold showing her impressive short distance speed in 29.22 and she also picked up a Bronze medal in the U13G shot with a throw of 5.62m to show her versatility.
Jemima Davey two Gold and a Bronze medal and a Championship best performance at the Cambs County Champs
Bottom year Jess Lamb enjoyed a fantastic Championship to secure the classic middle distance double of 800m & 1500m. Lamb dominated both races, leading from the gun she set a marginal PB in the 800m with 28.5 winning by almost 7 seconds, and making her 1500m debut she looked very comfortable to win by a huge margin of 16 seconds with a superb time of 5:06.5 to move into the UK top 30 rankings. Confessing that she rather enjoyed her first 1500m Lamb will compete over the distance again before the close of the track season to see how close she can get to the magical 5:00 barrier.
Jess Lamb Classic MD double Gold in the 800m & 1500m
Since joining the squad in June U11 Ollie Smith has made significant progress and this was on show with a brilliant 600m/ 1200m double Gold. In the 600m Smith didn’t panic when the first 100m was covered as a virtual sprint, moving in on the leader approaching the Bell smith put in a determined effort to pull well away from the field finishing in 1:56.0 seven seconds ahead of 2nd place. On day 2 smith repeated the feat with another terrific performance to take the Gold in the 1200m, looking untroubled he stretched his lead during the race to win by 14 seconds in 4:12.5
Ollie Smith big improvements this season were on show to win the 600m & 1200m Gold
There were many other notable performances with U11 Bella Lamb, younger sister to Jess, winning a fine gold in the 1200m, and a bronze in the 600m, U17 Ben Brooker & U15 Dylan white both winning Gold in their respective 800m races, and both returning the next day to win Bronze medals in the shorter sprints, 400m/ 300m respectively. Erin Healy running her first races of a stuttering season secured fine Gold/ Bronze medals in the 200m & 100m respectively to get some sharpness before eying up the 400m hopefully later in the season. U17 Lucas Mansell easily won the U17M 3000m Gold with a terrific race to finish in 9:57.6 over 30 seconds ahead of second place. Zachary Scott ran an outstanding race to win the U13 boys 1500m by over 7 seconds to claim the Gold also setting a superb new PB of 5:06.5 in the process. Leicestershire Indienne King dropped distance to compete over 400m and set a new PB of 56.87 competing against and beating one of the U17 men in the process.
U13 Finley Brooker secured two fine Bronze medals in the 800m & 1500m, and there was a brace of silver medals for Freya Batkin (U20W 3000m), George Sharp (U13B 800m), Rio Carr (U17M 1500m) and Josh Cannell (U20M 1500m) who also secured a Silver medal in U20M the 3000m as did Freya Batkin who also secured a Silver medal in the U20W 3000m with a new PB. U13 Camille Chassaigne also secured a Bronze medal in the 1500m.
In all there were a total of 25 medals secured by the squad, with 13 Gold which is a fantastic return.
For many the season will soon draw to a close, but there are athletes competing in the U15/U17 England Athletics National Championships this coming weekend.
Sprints/ Throws report coming soon
Well done to everybody who ran.