Success for Athletics at BUCS

Last weekend (4-6 May), Southampton University Athletics and Cross Country Club, ran in the BUCS Outdoor Track and Field Championships. The team traveled to Bedford on the Friday evening to prepare for the weekend’s racing, jumping and throwing.

The first day got off on a great start with Martha Neal, running a new personal best on 18:38 for the 5000m and Sophie Darling showing what she’s made of with a very good race to break the sub 20 minute barrier, a barrier that most males find a challenge to break. Martha’s time, put her through to the final on Monday.

Next to race was Johnny Roberts in the 1500m, placed in a very quick heat, he stuck with the pack to run a great race to reach the Semi-Finals on Sunday evening. Jack Gregory had another great race for a point very early in the season, stuck in a very tactical race however just missed out on a place in the Semi-Finals, with the 4 fastest loser progressing, he was 5th fastest!

Taylor Langford-Smith did what she needed to do to progress to a very competitive javelin final, much to her surprise after not throwing at her best. She finished a fantastic 8th place, once of the club’s best ever results.

Malcolm Gledhill was next up in the 100m, running a good time of 11.10 seconds, just missing out on a personal best, which he had ran a week before of 10.96 seconds. This time was still good enough to progress to the Semi-finals on the Sunday morning. Dan Rebolledo ran in the 400m heats, this is a new event for him this season so used the race to understand tactics and pacing, learning a lot for the rest of the season.

Emily Bonnet raced in the 400m hurdle heats.  She stormed through the field to win her race on the last 2 meters of the race qualifying for the final on Monday

Laura Barlett-Short ran a fantastic personal best of 6:13 in her 1500m race which was a new PB by 13 seconds!  One of the clubs best runners and 1st year sports person of the year was up next in the mens 5000m, smashing his old 5000m pb by one minute to finish 5th in his heat in a time of 14:47 after dragging the whole field round with a mile to go. This eased him though the final on monday. Ewan Maynard also ran a huge PB in the 5000m of 17:32, smashing his old best by 36 seconds.

Nadia Papasidero and John Wright were up in the 800m after Alex,  John, the club president, ran a very well paced race and finished strongly to run a seasons best of 1:59.50 and placing him in good stead for the year to come! Nadia ran another personal best of 2:39.93 in a very strong 800m line up.

After this, Dave Lewis ran a rapid 3000m steeple chase, finishing in 9:59 after navigating safely over the barriers and water jump.

The team then retired to the hotel for a well deserved meal and rest. Sunday brought another load of great results.

Malcolm Gledhill had a another great run, coming 3rd in his Semi-final, not progressing to the final, however to show the standard of competition, the winner of the final ran a rapid 10.41! Malcolm also raced in the 200m along with Dan Rebolledo, who both ran personal bests with Malcolm progressing to the Semi-Final again. However, Malcolm could not race as the semi’s were on the Monday and he had to go home!

Jake Bradley ran in the 10,000m, hoping for a new personal best off the back of his BUCS marathon 2 weeks ago, where he ran 2:54.  After 5000m he realised that he still had a lot of fatigue in his legs but still ran a huge new PB of 36:54, more than a minute off his old time!

Karoliina Isoaho was jumping in the triple jump, but unfortunately could not perfect her run up and got 3 foul jumps.  She also ran in the 100m Hurdles, coming through the field at the end of the race to run a new PB of 15.62.

Johnny Roberts was up in the final race of the day in the 1500m semi-final. With the leaders shooting off at blistering pace, Johnny just had to be sensible, running his second fastest ever time of 4:02.46.

Monday brought the finals of the championships. With 4 finalists, it meant the club had a great day lined up!

Emily Bonnet was up first. After being the fastest qualifier, she looked in could stead to gain a BUCS medal.  She came onto the home straight in third place, 15m behind the leader, however this is Emily’s strongest part closing all the way to the finish to get a new personal best of 58.49 and more importantly a silver medal, the same as at the Olympic stadium the year before, just behind an Olympic Athlete!

Alex Teuten had great 5000m final in what was probably the highest standard race of the weekend. He powered through the last two laps to come in 9th position!

Dave Lewis ran a shin-shattering race, quite litterally tripping over a barrier with 2 laps to go, but continuing to come a solid 13th place in the 3000m steeple-chase final!

Martha Neal ran a perfectly paced race in her 5000m final to gain her second PB of the weekend, gaining on two people in the final two laps, coming a solid 13th place in 18:32.

The final two races of the weekend for the club were not competitive but were the club doing a good deed for a fellow athlete. With the clubs T11 (blind) athlete unable to compete, Jake Bradley (endurance captain) and John Wright (President) offered to help pace the lone T38 (Cerebral Palsy) athlete to try and get him two new PBs. The athlete from Cardiff, first raced in the ambulant 200m.  With John Wright and the Cardiff captain either side of him, he ran the 200m in 28.45 which was a new PB by .2 of a second. In the 400m ambulant race, he was once again alone. This meant that he then had Jake Bradley one side of him and his captain and John Wright the other side. The two Southampton Athletes pulled the Cardiff man round for a huge 2 second PB.  This once again shows that Southampton University Athletics Club is at the forefront of Disabled Athletics in BUCS!

The weekend consisted of, 1 silver medal, an 8th place, 4 finalists, 2 Semi-finalists and 7 personal bests. Topped of by helping a Cardiff Athlete reach another 2 PBs!