A wonderful committed and dedicated small team of athletes represented the club at Bournemouth in the 2nd match
of the NAL season. It was hot but a sea breeze offered the occasional relief in the shade. Special mention to our
supporting officials who endured the conditions all afternoon, Graham and Debbie Brooks, John Smerdon, Jennifer
Graham, Rob Grove in the field, Cathy Grove as Timekeeper and Carol Strange as Track Judge. John and Jennifer also
had a successful Level 3 progression report completed.
Just the eleven athletes took advantage of the competitive opportunity and turned in some great performances.
Kirsty Treglown bagged a 2nd place in the 100m and really battled to a win in the 200m with an excitingly close
photo-finish result.
Sophie Hornung elevated herself to 3m29 for a solid win in the Pole Vault, just a centimetre below her outdoor best,
surely a new Pb is on the cards before the end of the season.
After a recent difficult training period, a positive Naomi Dawson was satisfied with a solid 100m Hurdles result in a
competitive race.
For the men the afternoon kicked off in the 800m with Greg Hayward who took 2nd place in the A race and later
another 2nd place in the 1500m in which Kane Lee did the hard front running for the pack until the final 200m but still
achieved a near 5 second Pb almost going under 4 minutes and achieving a B race win.
Josh Maggs added team points with 2nd places in A race 100m and 200m with Jake Burkey making a return to
competition and backing up with a solid 100m B race 2nd place.
Liam Hillier was delighted to take his first Pole Vault win in NAL competition and then grabbed more team points in
Shot, Discus and Javelin with his commendable team player attitude.
Malcolm Bourne added a metre and a bit to his 2k Discus Pb showing some good progression and bodes well for his
plan to go to the next World Master Championships.
The heat made the endurance events a real challenge but the 2k Steeplechase did at least give Josh Adler the cooling
dip at the water barrier every lap, 9 seconds off his Pb achieved.
Oli Grove also stuck to his pace plan in the 3000m being on target at the 2k point and managing to pick off one
athlete in front of him in a race that quickly became strung out. Pace lapsed a little in the final 1000m but still
produced a solid performance.
For their unwavering club support and performances match 2 athletes of the match are Kirsty Treglown and Greg
Hayward.
Unsurprisingly, with so few athletes, the final match position put us in last place. We can but hope that a few more
club athletes remember what they are training for and start putting some effort into supporting the club’s teams.