Young Athletes League - Chester le Street -1st August 2004

The fifth and last of this season’s YAL fixtures was at the Riverside Stadium, Chester-le-Street, on Sunday 1st August, competing against Blaydon, Chester-le-Street and Elswick. Team Manager, Fiona Hughes, writes in the Winter Newsletter “the match was on the first weekend in August and the school holidays had begun; we had two under 13 boys, no under 15 boys and four under 17 boys, two under 13 girls, five under 15 girls and no under 17 girls plus seven officials, but Elswick were even worse off. We finished 3rd; behind Blaydon and Chester-le-Street but 88 points ahead of 4th placed Elswick. The result left us in 15th place overall in the League and confirmed our relegation to Division 2 but didn’t mean the season was wasted. On the contrary, nobody who competed in the League should feel disheartened; they all performed brilliantly throughout the whole season and our Achilles heel was simply lack of numbers, not being able to fill all the events, rather than lack of effort by those who did compete”.

Reinforcing this point, the thirteen athletes competed in the maximum 39 out of 68 individual events on the day, they had 16 wins and scored 123 points between them - an average of more than 3 points per event. There were three A-string wins for Lindsey Johnston in the high jump, shot and javelin; two As and a B-string win for Sophie Broadway in both sprints and the shot and for Jo Adams in the 800m, shot and javelin; two A-string wins for Ruth Hill, first equalling her Club Record in the 70m hurdles and then setting a season’s best in the 150m; A-string wins for Tom Walker in the 200m and Tom Osborn in the 1500m; a double B for Leanne Shaw in the sprints; a B-string win on her debut for Brogan Fraser in the 150m and a win by the under 15 girls in the 4x100m relay.

RZH results (alphabetically): Jo Adams U15G 800m 2:31.6, javelin 13m75 & discus 22m89; Rosie Adams U15G 800m 2:33.7, long jump 3m35 & discus 13m76; Chris Andrade U17B javelin 28m05, discus 17m72 & 1500m 5:02.8; Sophie Broadway U15G 100m 13.4, shot 5m37 & 200m 27.8; Marcus Clarke 100m 12.7, 200m 26.0 & triple jump 10m33; Brogan Fraser U13G 75m 10.7, 150m 21.6 & long jump 3m17; Ruth Hill U13G 70m hurdles 13.6, 150m 21.4 & long jump 3m68; Lindsey Johnston U15G high jump 1m35, shot 7m16 & javelin 27m28; Sean Osborn U17B 100m 12.3, 400m 54.5 & 200m 25.5; Tom Osborn U13B 100m 15.7, long jump 3m46 & 1500m 5:13.4; Simon Robson U17B 800m 2:13.5, 400m 58.6 & 1500m steeplechase 5:20.3; Leanne Shaw U15G 100m 13.8, 200m 32.8 & long jump 3m90; Tom Walker U13B 800m 2:59.2, long jump 3m35 & 200m 31.3; U15G 4x100m 57.5 and U17B 4x100m 51.3.

Several weeks later, on Sunday 18th September, Carl Outhwaite wrapped-up his season with higher-level competition for his second-claim Club, Gateshead Harriers, in the European Champion Clubs Cup for Juniors at the International Stadium and threw a new PB of 39m60 with the 6kg Hammer to secure the bronze medal.

Great North Mile Races - Junior Great North and Great North Run 25th-26th September 2004

Bringing results more up-to-date, the Great North weekend had a succession of races. First, the Great North Mile races - a mixture of the Elite by invitation, quality Club runners and have-a-go joggers, in several races all over the same Newcastle and Gateshead Quayside course. Ivan Heshko of the Ukraine was 5th in the 1500m in Athens but had enough to outsprint Eliud Kipchoge, the World 5,000m Champion from Kenya, to win the Elite Men’s race in 4:02.6. Kelly Holmes was the star-of-the-show with a comfortable win in 4:28.7 in the Elite Women’s race. A little further back, Edd Richards of RZH ran and won his race in exactly 5:00.0 on a windy day on a course he described with an unusual choice of words as “hilly and twisty”.

The Junior Great North Run was a little bigger, 4,000 runners under the age of 17 over a 4K course again along the Newcastle and Gateshead Quayside. Andrew Coffer of Chester-le-Street was the race winner, finishing in 13:05, 4 seconds ahead of Jonathan Young of Morpeth. Philip Fitzpatrick was first home for the Harriers, finishing in 28th place in 14:40 and one place ahead of Khalil Thompson of Shildon who had pipped him previously in Darlington. Chris Andrade also had a fine race despite suffering from an early-season-cold and finished 95th in 16:42, just ahead of the cut-off point when times and places are lost in the mass finish. Delyth James of Morpeth was 35th overall in 14:49 and won the Girl’s race, a little ahead of Katie Roberts and Jane Thornton of RZH whose times and places are unknown. Club Captain, Shaun Purkiss, took the three youngest in the family to compete and, aware of the shortcomings at the finish from past experience, he had his own watch to hand. By his reckoning, Charley finished in about 22 minutes, Ben in about 27 minutes, Rosey had an easy run with a friend from Richmond School and finished in about 30 minutes and, despite the crush and the argy-bargy, they all loved every minute of it.

Benita Johnson of Australia clocked 1:07:55 to win the big one, the Great North Half Marathon on Sunday 26th and Dejene Berhanu of Ethiopia set a course record 59:37 in winning the Open race that followed. The Harriers had only one runner on the day and Shirley Mathurin wasn’t out to break any records, just to get round in one piece and to enjoy herself. She did exactly what it says on the tin!