It was an early start for many Belgravians this Saturday as a team of 24 athletes and 5 officials made their way west to Yeovil for round 3 of the NAL.

Intermittent downpours didn’t dampen the Belgrave spirit as the team cheered eachother on to new bests in what for many were some even newer events. 

With a strong turnout from home favourites Yeovil and nearby Yate, it was always going to be hard to hold onto the league lead. However, through sheer determination and the efforts of everyone chipping in to cover the events, Belgrave came out in 2nd place behind Yeovil and just a whisker ahead of Portsmouth in 3rd. This was a crucial result in the hunt from promotion this year and puts us 2nd in the league with a 2-point cushion to Portsmouth in 3rd and just 1 point behind Yeovil. If the atmosphere for the 4x400m relays this weekend was anything to go by, I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the final at Yate in August. 

Sprints

Sprint king Sam Ige remains unbeaten the 100m and 200m this year in the league. Joined this time by Pierre Walker who comfortably won the B string 200m (but needs to wait for the gun next time in the 100m…sorry Pierre!). Sian Harry and Rachel Donnison took on the dreaded 200/400m double and bagged near maximum points for the team showing incredible speed endurance.  

Kareem Selman-Jackson ran another fantastic 49-second race but had a real battle on his hands in the 400m; the top four athletes were separated by just 0.8 seconds. It was a solid 3rd place finish but Kareem made sure to have the last word in the relays that evening. More on that later.

Hurdles

Gareth Holden was joined by Kareem for his first run out over the men’s 400m Hurdles. With Kareem 3rd in the A string and Gareth 1st in the B string, we continue to score big points in the hurdles. Holly Aldridge made her NAL debut in the women’s event and romped home for a great 2nd place in 69.19. 

Middle distance

Although there were plenty of gaps in the team sheet before the meeting, our four women middle distance athletes managed to cover all the events except the steeplechase. Jane McIver had made the journey specifically to run the chase for the first time after a successful practice over the barriers the week before but had felt unwell all day. Even so, she helped the team by running the 'B' string 800m as well. 

So far this season the women's middle-distance events have not been strong in depth which means covering them with two athletes will lead to good points scores. Fiona Maddocks joined Jane to run the 'A' string in the 800m, both securing very useful 2nd places. 

Belgrave scored maximum points in the 3000m with Mhairi Hall winning the 'A' string easily, her first track race since recovering from a major hip operation over a year ago. Mhairi brought her grannie along to spectate - she proved to be quite a celebrity having coached and officiated at Yeovil, her local club for many years. The Belles’ international W55 race walking star Maurine Noel, who had come just to officiate, volunteered to fill the 'B' string, which she won.

Mhairi and Fiona both doubled up to run the 1500m with Mhairi coming second in the 'A' race and Fiona winning the 'B' string. 

The men's middle-distance races in the league have all been well supported and good quality with winners under 2 minutes for 800m, under 4 minutes for 1500m and on Saturday the winner of the 5000m running an excellent 14:40. On Saturday the only MD specialist to make the journey was Ben Ringrose-Voase who ran an excellent race coming 3rd in 1:57.01 in a highly contested 800m field, knocking another 3 seconds off his PB. Although Gareth Holden was saving himself for further events in the afternoon, he nevertheless won the 'B' string 800m. He also ran the 1500m.

However, for the first time in living memory, our men did have two competitors in the 3000m Steeplechase, Ben Ringrose-Voase and Valentin Rigori. Valentin was even hurdling the barriers! They ran together for the majority of the race both finishing in around 11 minutes and adding two much needed second places to the points score.    

Jumps

The field was on fire at Yeovil. In a rare turn of events, we filled almost all of the jumps and scored some excellent points. In the women’s high jump Grace Johnson and Jess Lee took 1st in both the A and B string for maximum points. In the men’s event, club newcomers Milan Stanisavljevic and Teni Wood were 2nd (A) and 1st (B) respectively. Teni, reaching 1.72m in his first athletics competition ever, was very impressive.

Not content with the vertical jumps, Jess, Milan and Teni all turned out for the Long Jump also, this time joined by Emma Watkins on the women’s team. Whilst the weather gradually turned to rain again, all jumped well to score much needed points. Despite illness, Jane MacIver supported the team once again by entering the triple jump and scoring 6 points. In the men’s event Milan and Gareth partnered up to hop, skip and jump their way to 3rd (A) and 1st (B) respectively.

Throws

The throwers managed to fill most of the slots on a wet day. Due to a late arrival on the coach,  we only had Lina Shkier in the women’s hammer, but Lina pulled out a fantastic PB. Grace Johnson and Orna McGinley helped fill in the gaps for the other throwing events. The heavens opened and Grace and Lina looked soaking wet during the lake stone ‘skimming’ event otherwise known as discus!  Matjus Mager had two competition PBs in Discus and Hammer – Mat was ever so pleased as he beat his coach twice!

Valentin Rigori, fresh off the track got through to the second round of Javelin and threw a very decent 30.39m. 

The best catch of the day was performed by Chris Privett who discovered a tiny hatchling beside the feet of an unsuspecting official. The palm-sized baby bird had been blown out of the trees. Chris gently handed it to Lina who released it back into the bushes, much to everyone’s excitement. 

Relays

Arguably the highlight of the day was the 4x400m relays. First up were the women. Rachel led the charge with a strong 61 second first leg to put the team in contention. Club president Fiona Maddocks held the position well on the second leg before passing onto Orna who ran a fantastic 69 seconds despite claiming to ‘jog it in’. As Orna passed over to Sian Harry, the team were in 2nd place with Yate just ahead. Sian wasted no time and blasted past the Yate athlete to take the lead down the back straight and held strong at the end to take the win for Belgrave by 1 clear second.

The men’s race was a close contest throughout with both Yate and Portsmouth fielding high standard athletes in the individual event earlier that day. Gareth Holden set off on the 1st leg and despite tired legs, handed off to Pierre Walker in the lead of the race. Pierre, pressured by Yate and Yeovil, held on well to keep us right in the thick of it. Passing onto 100m specialist Sam Ige, Belgrave were sitting in 3rd right on the shoulders of some quick athletes from Yate and Portsmouth. Running a 51.7 leg was exceptional and meant that when Kareem got the baton for the last leg, he was in touching distance of his rivals. In an incredible show of strength, Kareem blew away the field down the back straight to take the lead and he held on for the win to the cheers of the Belgrave contingent supporting. Rewarded for his efforts with a 47.4 second split, it was surely the performance of the match. 

Full results via Opentrack

Next

It’s the final! Yate. 20th August…you don’t want to miss it! We have a 2 point cushion to Portsmouth but anything could happen. A top 3 finish would all but guarantee promotion (providing Portsmouth are not the team in 1st) so we need to give it everything to make it happen.

Additional reporting by Charlie Dickinson (middle distance) and Chris Privett (throws).