News

The 2002 Track and Field League season or Richmond and Zetland Harriers got off to a cracking start with the Senior Men winning their opening match on Saturday 4^th at Jarrow. Competing against five "Geordie" Clubs from Birtley, Blaydon, Gosforth, Morpeth and Wallsend, the nine-man team notched-up nine A-string wins and several PBs in a 334 points total, 104 more than Morpeth in second place.

To choose a highlight would be impossible as all the athletes had something to write home about: John Wild competed in all four throwing events and set a PB in the hammer with 36m65; David Powell also competed in the throws and had wins in the shot, discus and javelin; Dave Armstrong won the long jump, triple jump and high jump and was second in the 100m; James Wardman set a PB of 4:00 in the 1500m; Jon Orange set a PB of 15:15 in the 5000m in his first-ever win! Chris Peacock competed in seven events and won the B-string 400m hurdles; Dan Brooks also contested seven events and won both the 400m hurdles and the 110m hurdles; John Aspell made his debut for the Club was second in the B-string 1500m and Shaun Purkiss ran 16:42 for 5000m, knocking more than 30 seconds off his 2001 best time.

The Senior Men's next fixture is at Chester-le-Street on Saturday 8^th June and the Harriers hope to build on this success, by fielding several missing athletes and with a full complement of Officials.

The Northern Women and Young Athletes Leagues both started on Sunday 5^th but Leeds Metro University student Louise Jackson chose to compete in the BUSA T&F Championships at Bedford. Louise has spent a major part of this year training for the steeplechase, 2000m over 2ft-6" barriers, and had targeted Bedford for her debut but the event was cancelled moments before the gun when officials discovered the barriers were 3ft-0" and not adjustable. Plan B was the 5000m and Louise ran her semi in a PB 18:07, finishing sixth and qualifying for the final, but she hasn't got the legs yet for Championship races on successive days and was unable to reproduce her form.

Other Highlights

Earlier in the week, three Harriers travelled to Stretford, Manchester to compete in a BMC Standards Meeting. All three chose to run in the 1500m, in different races - James Wardman ran 4:03.02, Ken Harker ran 4:15.07 and Nick Zissler ran 4:22.50.

Grete Buck ran in the Tadcaster 10 on Sunday 5^th and proved had got the London Marathon out of her legs with a time of 1:25:46 but came away empty-handed as the organisers hadn’t included for Lady Super Vets.

Tuesday 7^th was race number 2 in the Midweek Road Race League, hosted by Harrogate H&AC over the 5 mile all-road, out-and-back, two big hills course near Harlow Carr Gardens. Ian Fisher of Otley returned to form with a clear win over the home Club's Alan Stimpson; RZH had four in the first twelve but key runners were missing and the full results will probably show a bigger points gap at the top of the Open Team Race.

Race three in the League is at 7.30 pm on Wednesday 22^nd from the Railway Social Club at Starbeck.