Photo – The Tonbridge men’s team
Tonbridge Athletic Club took teams to the South of England Road Relay Championships, on Sunday, which for the first time were held at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, at Stratford, London. The men’s race had 60 teams finishing and consisted of twelve runners per team, alternating between long legs of 7.2 kilometres, plus short legs of 4.8 kilometres. The women’s race had teams of six, with 38 teams finishing and included four short legs and two long legs. The Tonbridge men’s team finished third behind Aldershot and Highgate, with their B team moving through strongly to place 11th place. The women’s team finished 10th overall.
Michael Ellis, ran the first of the long legs for Tonbridge, on what is often the most competitive lap of the event. He ran 22.15 and, after slipping at the start, came through to finish 18th. Sean Molloy moved the team up seven places, recording 14.49 for the first of the shorter legs. Then James West had a race long battled with Hercules Wimbledon, as both teams moved up the field. West ran 21.26 to come home in 5th. Cameron Chambers (14.43) and Alex Howard (22.08) kept the team in 5th, before Stuart Brown ran 14.31 to move into 3rd position at the halfway stage. Brown’s time showed an excellent return to his best form, as he was the 6th fastest short leg overall of the race.
Tonbridge remained in third throughout the second half of the race, closing a little on second-placed Highgate and pulling away from Hercules Wimbledon. The team was completed by Corey De’Ath (22.19), Dan Bradley (14.53), Ben Cole (21.42), Miles Weatherseed (14.35), James Kingston (20.56) and Ben Murphy (14.41), Kingston’s time being the 6th fastest long stage of the race. The B-team moved through from being 31st after the first stage to 11th, with the fastest legs coming from Jamie Macdonald (14.48) and Steve Strange (22.23).
The women’s team, who finished 10th , consisted of Polly Pitcairn-Knowles (18.36), Jess Murphy (18.22), Annabelle Hales (18.24) and Maria Heslop (17.58) on the short stages, plus Imogen Amos (25.38) and Nichola Evans (27.33) on the long stages.
Ian Crawley wins World Championship bronze and breaks British record
Ian Crawley travelled to Torun, Poland, for the World Masters’ Indoor Championships last week and came away with winning a bronze medal in the over 60 men’s Pentathlon. Crawley also scored a total of 3781 points to beat the previous British best mark by just four points.
A 60 metres hurdles in 10.45 put him 5th overall, after the first event, from 31 competitors. This was followed by a Long Jump of 4.75 metres, a Shot Put of 11.75m and High Jump of 1.51 metres. He then ran the fastest 1000 metres of all the competitors and recorded 3.20.12.
On Easter Monday, Tonbridge Athletic Club will be hosting the traditional open meeting, which takes place across the day, at Tonbridge School track.
