Belles defend Surrey Road Relays title while Bels take silver
Belgrave’s women overcame scorching heat in Wimbledon to retain their Surrey county road relays title, while the men improved from fourth place last year to secure a silver medal.
On a hilly course that saw five Belgrave teams soar up and out of Wimbledon Park before returning to finish on its track, the club once again flexed its excellent depth. The Belles’ ‘B’ team came fourth overall, while the Bels scored 5th and 12th respectively with their ‘B’ and ‘C’ strings.
A proud coach Charlie Dickinson with the Surrey road relay champions
All photos by Steve Gardner
Blistering times in blistering conditions
Words by Charlie Dickinson
Temperatures reached 33 degrees at Wimbledon park in the early afternoon, but the difficult and oppressive conditions didn't prevent every member of the two Belles teams producing outstanding runs. The 'A' team finished nearly two and a half minutes ahead of second placed Herne Hill Harriers, and our 'B' team finished in fourth place - less than a minute from the bronze medals.
Steph Hewitt led off for the 'A' team on first leg. This can be difficult to pace with women and men starting together, but Steph managed the chaos very well and held a slim lead in the women's race when she re-entered the arena. An exhausted Steph was very unluckily chased down over the final few yards and agonisingly missed the fastest leg of the day by just one second.
Felicity Harrison took over on the second leg, just behind the leading Guildford runner, but soon went in front and forged ahead. When she finished her leg she had built a lead of over 200m.
It was so nice to see Sophie Cowper back running well after a very long time recovering from Covid. Sophie continued to extend the Belles lead, and when she handed over to Léa Adamson for the final leg, the second placed team had not even entered the arena.
Léa simply had to get round to secure the gold medals, but of course she did a lot more than that with another fine run to extend the Belles winning lead. The four runners in the 'A' team all finished within 12 seconds of each other and all in the top six fastest legs of the day out of over 70 competitors.
But, the Belles also have tremendous depth with their 'B' team finishing 4th out of the 14 who completed the race. Mimi Corden-Lloyd ran a very solid first leg despite still feeling the affects of the previous weekend's Big Half in her legs.
Laura Goodson has steadily built up her fitness over the winter and ran herself to exhaustion in a time under 18 minutes for the second leg. Sam Munday, like Mimi also produce a low 18 minute run handing over to Phoebe Davies, who despite professing to being not very fit, nevertheless brought the team home safely with another run in the 18's.
Sommerville leads the charge to silver
Words by Alex Janiaud
Belgrave’s men gave team manager Steve Gardner a selection headache ahead of the Southern Road Relays later this month, as several Bels outside the silver-medalling team outperformed times set by the ‘A’ squad. Indeed, the ‘B’ side found itself leading the ‘A’ team in the early part of the race.
Conall McNally is cheered home as the Bels ‘A’ team secures silver.
This is a nice problem to have, and is testament to the growing depth of our men’s squad, which has been founded upon the relentless development of our Battersea setup and a sterling recruitment drive that has been spearheaded by Steve. Sam Sommerville, who upgraded from second claim status within the last 12 months, is in electrifying form and posted the fastest individual time in the ‘A’ team, edging ahead of Josh Trigwell.
Other highlight performances included those from Phil Wicks, Ed Hanton, Oliver Jackson and Matt Holman in the ‘B’ team, who came home quicker than a handful of our ‘A’ runners. This made no difference to the overall placing of the ‘A’ team, which finished behind a very strong Guildford side.
We look ahead to Southern Road Relays on September 23, where we will attempt to qualify teams for the national event.