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Reading Athletic Club |
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Latest News - August
Ladies give brave fight as promotion is missed by 0.5 points! Reading's Senior ladies contested their final UK league division
4 fixture at Gateshead Sunday and despite losing a few key athletes late on, gave a superb all round team display to cover
the events and keep Reading in the hunt for promotion. However, cruely, they were to be denied by the smallest of margins
- half a point infact! The effort of the 15 athletes that took part deserved more, as the team showed real battling qualities
despite many of them competing in 3 or more events.
Shelley Bowen, the only athlete to have competed in all of Reading's UK league matches - and their top points scorer, led the way with a deserved victory in the 100m. She backed that up later when narrowly being beaten into 2nd in the 200m.
Lorraine Bobb made sure she was there to support the team despite not at full fitness. She ran an improved 100m and also gained
a 4th in the long jump.
Senior Captain Meryl Austin carried on her good form, a 3rd in the b-string long jump and 4thA in
the triple jump all added to the points tally. The throws saw Coral Stewart and Elizabeth Goddard score highly. The hammer
saw Coral throw well for a fine 2nd in the a-string whilst Elizabeth secured a comfortable b-string victory. Both then threw
well in the discus with Coral 6thA and Elizabeth 4thB. The shot saw Coral repeat the position of 6thA, whilst Elizabeth went
one better with 3rdB.
Laura Pearce gained valuable points in the javelin, as did Nicky Cooke, with Nicky doing likewsie
in the 200m to make sure every possible point was gained.
The middle distance squad were in top form. Ariane Pritchard and Shirley-Ann Dix lined up for the
800m and both ran sound races, both girls finished 3rd in their respective races, with Ariane clocking a season's best.
Both then were in action over 400m, no less than 40 minutes later and again scored valuable points.
Louise Bardsley ran very well in a hotly contested 3000m race. She set herself a new pb with a effort
of 10.17 for 3rdA. Yonit Maroudas-Sacks made her final club appearance before going back to Isreal in a few days time. She
kept a cool head to finish 4thB. Louise showed her strength and endurance to join Rachel Phillips an hour later for the 1500m.
Louise gained herself another 3rd position in the a-string, whilst Rachel ran well in the b-string to also take 3rd.
2 athletes in particular who had tough schedule's was Lee Fellowes and Lucy Daniels. Lucy, whose
main event for the day was the steeplechase, showed her worth by competing in the b-strings of the 400mh and 100mh races and
running the opening leg of the 4x100 relay before even tackling her steeplechase. She is a credit to herself though and battled
well, even setting a new 400mh best.
Lee Fellowes clocked up 5 events. She opened with the 400mh, before taking a good 3rd in the triple
jump b-string. She then ran a season's best in the 100mh, before joining Shelley, Lucy and Lorraine for the 4x100 relay and
then ended her day with a leg in thr 4x400, alongside Rachel, Ariane and Shirley-Ann.
With so much effort put into the day's events, it was almost unjust that they missed promotion by
the smallest of margins, but their performances alone were a credit to the club and in 2010 with a further stronger team,
they are already targetting promotion from Divison 4
Senior men end Southern league on high with nail biting victory! On Saturday Reading AC senior men’s team hosted the final round of
the southern men’s league at Bracknell. It was potentially always going to be an exciting match with Reading in 5th
place in the league going into it against the 3rd and 4th placed teams, Hercules Wimbledon and Nene
Valley respectively. This proved to be the case with Reading edging out Nene Valley by one point on the day to take victory
and secure a final finish of 3rd overall in the 25 team league. The other 2 teams on the day were Ashford and Worthing. Reading got off to their now accustomed good start with team captain Mike
Dyer securing victory in the pole vault A string with 3.60m and Ricky Littlewood taking 2nd place in the B string
with 3.20m. Meanwhile in the hammer Nathan Walters took 2nd in the A string and Guy Perryman won the B string. In the long jump, Mark Dormer made a welcome return to the team and leapt
to a season’s best of 6.38m to take 2nd place in the A string. Luke Wale won the B string in 5.94m before
going on to take 3rd place in the A string 400m with a fast time of 50.0 secs. In the B string, Alan Wylie made
his debut for the track & field team and finished 4th in 54.3 secs. In the high jump Mike Dyer was joined by recent English school’s medallist
Ryan Bonifas and they both achieved 2nd place in the respective strings with jumps of 1.80m. At the same time,
in a tough shot putt competition Guy Perryman and Chris Toms secured valuable points with 3rd and 2nd
respectively. Junior, Tom Kingston made his debut for the seniors in the javelin and promptly
went straight to the top of the rankings with a throw of 48.82m which gave him 3rd in the A string. Mike Dyer won
the B string with 47.61m, to go 2nd on the club rankings list. The track started with the 400m hurdles and the ever busy Mike Dyer took
3rd place in the A string but would have got 2nd had he not been impeded by the Ashford athlete. John
Burnett took 4th in the B string. The same two then competed in the 110m hurdles a little later on with Mike this
time taking victory in 15.5 secs in his favourite event. John secured a very valuable 4th in the B string. Phil Brickley returned to the 100m following a lengthy injury lay off and
came 4th in a very tight A string 100m in 11.3 secs. Rian Corbin ran a very determined race to win the B string
in 11.3 secs also. Rian then went on to take 4th in another close race in the A string 200m with a time of 22.9
secs. He was joined my Michael Nevill, another returning from injury, who was 2nd in the B string with 23.4 secs. In the 800m Robbie Dutfield and Ashley Lake battled hard to secure 4th
places in their respective strings. In his last race for the team before moving to America, Stephen Granger-Bevan came 3rd
in the 5km and was joined by Dan Thorne who took a very good 2nd in the B string on his debut over the distance. Another athlete making a welcome return to the team was James Osun-Samni
who took a stunning victory in the triple jump with a leap of 13.88m. Craig Walters was 4th in the B string with
10.59. The final throwing event of the day was the discus where Guy Perryman and
Chris Toms both placed 3rd in their respective strings to help keep the team in the hunt overall. In the 1500m Carl Bradbury was 3rd in the A string and was joined
by Max Prien, who made a fine debut for the club by taking victory in the B string. The 4x100m relay team of Luke, Rian, Craig and Phil dominated the race to
secure an impressive victory in a fast time of 43.0 secs. Reading’s strongest event of the day was the 3km steeplechase where
Nick Earl and Fabian Downs resumed battle following their tight race in the 1500m at the previous match. This time Nick came
out on top to win the race from Fabian, but both easily won their strings in fast times of 9mins 40.1 secs and 9mins 58.6
secs respectively. This all meant that Reading were leading by only 2 points going into the
final event of the day, the 4x400m relay. The team of Robbie, Ashley, Max and Mike ran a very smart race to finish 2nd
behind a fast Nene Valley team and this was enough to help secure overall victory by the smallest of margins. The final placing of 3rd in the league is the teams highest since
winning the title back in 2006. There is now a nervous wait for the men before they find out whether they’ve done enough
to secure a place in the play-off match for the National League, which takes place on Saturday 19th September. |
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