Crystal Palace provided a great location for the Southern Road Relay Champs. In contrast to last year’s cold and windswept conditions at Bedford, this year’s competition took place on a beautifully sunny autumn day. Although the setting was a little strange for ‘road’ relays as the races started and ended inside the stadium.
The first leg of the U15 girls race was a crowded affair with well over 40 girls on the track jostling for position. Hatty Bell battled her way through and made up good ground once out the stadium, handing over to Maddy Wood who handed over to Kirsten Stilwell.
Kirsten made up significant ground and ended up with the second fastest time of the day in 9:34 bringing the girls home in 25th. In the U17 girls race Cerys Vico got off to a flying start and posted Wycombe’s second fastest time of the day after Kirsten. The team was ably supported by Emma Styles and Bettina Hanlon who both did well to bring the team through in a highly respectable 20th place.
The U17 girls 2nd team was led out by Ana Montgomery, followed by Siân Vico (extending her repertoire from sprints) and Mia Waterhouse. The girls battled hard warm conditions.
Its great to welcome ex 1.44 800m man James Mcilroy into the Club. Unfortunately, the drawn out procedure for changing allegiance meant he missed out on being cleared to run in the scoring A team by 5 days, so ran in a non scoring B team.
snr men crystal palacePeter Finn and Kieran Gilfedder were up against it on the first 2 legs but they held their nerve and can both be pleased with their runs.Joe Branch and Ben Sendall then went to work and picked up 30 places. The last two legs are tough in a relay as everyone becomes more spread out but Sean Wilson and David Clark consolidated our position and we wound up 42nd. We had hoped for a top 30 finish but with an average age of 23.6, we can look forward to making a lot of progress in this event in the future.
So four good performances against top competition but we still have work to do as a Club as we were unable to field teams in the boys age groups and senior women. It would be great to see Wycombe vests in every race next year.
Photos:
Junior Girls at Crystal Palace
Senior Men at Crystal Palace
