Medway and Maidstone AC

 

 

 

The 2nd meeting of the season resulted with a better than average turn out, eleven athletes making the trip to Epsom on Derby day. All athletes worked hard on the day and their efforts resulted in a third place just five points of second.

The day got off to a bad start with the club having no entries in the pole-vault. In the heavy throws all the other teams had ‘heavy throwing athletes’ which meant Stuart Earl and Steve Hesketh were always going to struggle to pick up points. Stuart got his own back in the javelin, however, with a second A place supported by Andrew Lamport who claimed 2nd B. Lamport had a busy and successful day with another 2nd A in the triple jump, a win in the B high jump and useful points in both hurdles and sprint relay. The A high jump was won by James Hogg who also took 2nd place in the B triple jump – his 4th PB in 4 attempts. Sean Hannant-Smith proved to be very useful with a win in the A long jump, creditable times in the 100 & 200 m and involvement in both relays. The busiest person of all was Nick Slade and although five events doesn’t sound too bad when you consider two of these were the 5000 m and 3000 m steeplechase you can understand why he was a little tired at the end of the day! His other events were both hurdles and the long jump. Nick claimed 2nd B in the 5K and 2nd A in the chase. Gareth Williams claimed 2nd A in the 5000m. The best results on the track were in the 800 m where Andjus Safrin was 2nd A (a race won in 1.55, very fast for Division 3) and James Hogg won the B race. Dujon Brown and Chris Fowler took on the 400m, Fowler being pleased with his 2nd B place. In the 1500 m Stuart Flack, normally an 800 m runner, agreed to the longer race, supported by James Hogg.

The sprint relays proved to be a struggle but the 4 x 400m looked much better and took 2nd place.

A good result overall and if the team can continue to get athletes out and fill all the events they could do really well. The next meeting is fairly local at Bromley. Competing athletes should check the earlier starting times for this meeting.