Record entry for 2009 club championships - new events contested

A record 112 members contested every Track & Field event in the 2009 Club Championships in every age group and produced 441 scintillating performances, some in unfamiliar or even completely new events.

Event contested by greatest opposites

The 400m....
Road Running Senior Woman Sarah Bonnage proved that long distance runners can muster a decent turn of speed.
Short sprint specialist Chris Chancellor discovered his real range when, in his first ever race longer than 200m, doubled his race distance... bettered no fewer than 9 accomplished club rivals and... broke the 22 year-old u17 record.

Best entered event

The Mile attracted 32 entries and was contested in every single age group from u13 to vet-50 (both male & female) producing no fewer than 4 club records, the fastest being Alex Newson who broke the 12 year-old u-17 record.

Highest total titles

Jason Prickett entered and won every one of 8 u20 track distances (100m to 5,000m)

Largest single age group entry

400m...............(u-17 Men)... 10 entries requiring heats & final
800m & 1,500m...(u-17 Men).... 7 entries - Kieran Reilly won both
1,500m.............(u-13 Girls)... 6 entries - 1st 3 finishers all ran National grade 2

Seniors

Aaron Murray......... 4 titles - all the throws
Stacey McKelvie...... 3 titles (Mile 3,000m 5,000m) in her first year with IEK
Chris Holmes.......... 2 titles - Mile + 5,000
Mark Wilkins.......... 2 titles - 3,000 + 10,000 (7 secs faster than in 2008)
Tom Purnell............ 800m champion
Brianna Zoll.......... 10,000m champion

Vets (mature athletes, not animal doctors...)

Richard Hudson.......(v-50)...... 7 titles - every flat track distance, except 400m
Terry Hawkins........(v-40)...... 7 titles - 2 sprints 2 jumps & 3 throws
John Gilbert...........(v-65)...... 5 titles - 3 throws + 2 jumps
Martin Kelk............(v-40)...... 5 titles from 400 to 5,000 except 1,500m
Sue Cooper............(v-50)...... 4 titles - all between 400 and 5,000m
Vicky Talbot Rosner..(v-45)...... 3 titles - 800m 3,000m 5,000m)
Tim Kerr...............(v-45)...... 2 titles - 400m + 3,000m

u20

Charlotte Burnett........ 4 titles - three throws + 100m
Aaron Murray............. 4 titles - all the throws (in addition to all his Senior wins)
Rachel Seaman........... 4 titles - all 800 to 5,000 except 1,500
Callum Barling Jeffery... 3 titles - High, Long & Triple
Andy Cope................. champion at 10,000m
James Reilly........(Becky's brother) entered the greatest number of events
James Reilly........(Becky's brother) came up against Jason in all track events
James Reilly........(Becky's brother) then against Callum Barling Jeffery in High Jump

u17

Scarlett Mann......... 4 titles despite being ill on main day and missing 3 events
Kieran Reilly........... 4 titles (all middle distance) in particularly rich seam of talent
Chris Chancellor....... 3 titles - king of sprints (100, 200, 400)
Megan Eeles........... 3 titles - queen of sprints (100, 200, 300)
Rebecca Weston...... 3 titles - missed 2 events due to broken collar bone
Becky Reilly............ 2 titles - Shot + our first ever u-17 female steeplechase
Alex Newson.......... fastest Mile in club championships + new age group club record
Emily Hosker Thornhill.. 1,500m club champion
Beth Burnett.......... 800m club champion
Sam Hudson........... won 1500 s/chase which had record entry
Ben Burton............ king of jumps (triple)
Jacob Burton.......... king of jumps (Long)
Chris Little............ entered 9 events - made biggest splash on lap 2 of S/chase

u15

Jake Rogers........ 5 titles - king of Mid-distance...AND won the Shot
Laura Clark......... 4 titles - 100m 200m + 80m Hurdles + Long
Jaffar Adams....... 3 titles - king of sprints (100, 200, 300)
Dominic Owen...... 3 titles - king of jumps (Long + Triple) + Discus
Anna Alvarez........ 3 titles - queen of throws with shot, discus & javelin
Caroline Robinson... 2 titles - 800m + Mile
Grace Leggatt....... 1 title (1500m) from 7 events contested - 100m up to 1,500m
1 title each.......... George Maylam (javelin) Luke Dawson (Mile)
1 title each.......... Annabel Carter (400) Emily Hunt (300)

u13

Max Farnell........... 5 titles - 2 sprints, long, discus, javelin
Kieran Hawkins...... 3 titles - hurdles, high & shot
Molly Howson......... 2 titles - double 100 + 200
Anna Weston......... 2 titles - 1,500 + MILE in a particularly rich seam of talent
James Pitcher......... 2 titles - Mile & 800m
Lauren Fielder........ 2 titles - High + Long
Lilly Coward........... 800m champion in a particularly rich seam of talent

under-11

Corinne Piersall Wakesmith - u-11 winner 2 sprints & long jump
Kelsey Fuss............. under 11 winner 600m
Finley Pleace............ under 10 winner 2 sprints, long jump + 600m
Holly Fielder............. under 10 winner 2 sprints, long jump + 600m
Douggie Noel............ under 9 winner 150m, 600m, Ball Throw
Madeline Tomlin........ under 9 winner 2 sprints + 600m
Oilver Weston........... under 8 winner 150m, 600m, Long
Ruben-James Gilbert... under 8 winner 75m, Ball Throw
For full details click underlined text...Club championships 2009 - Results
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Kent Track Relays 2007

At Norman park, Bromley, we came away with two team medals, both at 3 x 800m : we succesfully defended one of the 3 titles gained last year, and we also gained a team bronze thanks mainly to exciting performances from both newcomers and from members whose improvement is down to regular training in the club's junior squads.
Our u-13 Boys (Louis Duprez, Jake Rogers & Jack Balsdon) retained the title collected by last year's record breaking trio, Chris Thomas, Jack Balsdon and Sam Hudson.
Louis Duprez - youngest athlete in the whole race - gave the 'reds' a steady start with a focused run and a super sprint finish for 4th place. Jake Rogers, a newcomer to 800m who prefers the 1,500m, carved his way through the field with a scintillating run to give the lone runner from last year's winning squad, Jack Balsdon, a commanding lead.
Jack, currently ranked 17th in the whole country at 800m and No.1 in Kent, majestically retained the lead to cross the line in 7mins 25.7 secs, 3 tenths of a second better that last year's IEK record of 7:26.0 and 16 seconds ahead of Blackheath Bromley's strong trio.
Our under 15 Girls struck bronze with a collective time of 7mins 30.3, a mere half second outside Invicta's 10 year-old age record of 7:29.7, set when this title was last held by a red-vested trio of Lisa Crow (now with the BBC Sports Service) Marika Hayward and England runner Diana Jeffery. This year's team medal owes is all to Chaucer Technology student, Beth Burnett who showed how much she has improved since joining the club 18 months ago : with regular league outings this season over 1.500m, Beth showed she has the depth of fitness to cope with both heats and final.
Having given everything on the opening leg of the heats, Beth also delivered on the opening leg of the final - English Schools athlete Emily Hosker Thornhill worked her way up the field to 4th with her customary tenacious performance, then club 800m record holder Rebecca Weston stormed round to a team bronze medal just behind Tonbridge and Blackheath Bromley.
Pictures by Jenny Weston and Lea Burnett

Beth's race at Crystal Palace July 2007

Race photos by Rowan Williams (one of Beth's training stablemates) show she came 7th in a field of 18 in front of more than 15,000 spectators at the International Grand Prix in a special 'developmental' race for tomorrow's potential stars.
A dozen top ranked u-20 athletes + the best five u-17s were specially invited to the Grand Prix as part of UK Athletics programme to acclimatize talent to the caldron of the international arena.
This is the 2nd time one of our training group has had this honour - Charlotte Dale was invited to race 1,500m the year before she won the English Schools 3,000m in 2000.
A mighty contingent of nearly 30 Invicta members turned up to support Beth who is very quiet but popular with all her team mates, including Chris Little (u-15 boy) who knows he's unlikely to win a county title, let alone be invited to this level but who personally made a 'Go Beth' banner which he then got autographed by Linford Christie AND Tyson Gay to go with the whole Invicta squad's signatures.

The photos range from Beth limbering up with Emily Pidgeon (ranked UK No.3 at u-20) to racing/beating last month's English Schools winner Jessica Burns (green vest) to also beating Katie Knowles who was 3rd in front of Beth at last year's 1500m AAA, when Beth was 6th. Knowles has a 3,000m best this year of 9mins 30 to rank her 5th at u-20.....
The girl who dropped out at half way (right in front of Beth) was Olivia Kenny who is ranked 7th at u-20 with a best of 9mins 34.... Beth beat a number of illustrious rivals, all much older and much more experienced at these grand occasions, AND...... Beth was within touching distance of the country's best u-17, Charlotte Purdue who is one year older than Beth.
Statistic of the night: the winner, Emma Pallant (Aldershot) who is better known as an 800m runner, started the Grand Prix race with identical pb as Beth for 3,000m..... She is 3 years older than Beth, she surprised everyone by winning AND by improving her time by an unprecedented 24 seconds.
Pallant has run 3,000m only 15 times in the last four seasons - half of them at the age Beth is now. In all those races she dipped under 10 mins only once each season - a total of 5 times - All of Beth's six races this season have been under 10 mins.
What is more, Pallant's best ever (9mins 47.5 secs) before the G

 

News

Club Championships 2009 -

Club Championship write-up & results updated Saturday 3 October

The latest results now include under-11 Long Jump and u-15 800m - apologies to all competitors concerned - the write-up is also updated.
Please click underlined text for details...Club Championships 2009

Kent Track Relays 2009 -

9 IEK teams bag 5 medals at Kent Relays

Smoothest baton handover of the day featured Emily Hunt to Laura Clark on the last change in the heats of the u15 Girls 4x100.
The team was 4th in the final and the same quartet of Amber Mustafa, Laura Clark, Annabel Carter & Emily Hunt (pictured RIGHT) later took a fine bronze in the 4x200




Best teams on the day were the two silver medals in the Females 3x800m where we also had the biggest team turnout - left are the u-17 team silver medallists, Emily Hosker Thornhill, Beth Burnett & Rachel Burton



Strength in depth of our u-13 Girls is such that we entered no fewer than 3 teams : the Red Sparrows 3rd team of Molly Howson, Pippi Randall and Molly Dawson narrowly missed the final while the Red Sparrows 2nd team of Giulia Harte (left) Amy Old and Charlotte Nicholas were 5th in the final.
The Red Sparrows 1st team of Lilly Coward, Anna Weston and Ellen Whitehead (right) with their silver medals

The u-17 men's squad is equally strong in numbers - right the 4x400 2nd team (L to R) Sam Hudson, Chris Little, Ben Burton & Jacob Burton who just missed the final - left the 4x400 1st team of Alex Tuck, Kieran Reilly, Chris Chancellor and Kegan Goldsack Marsh with the 4x400 bronze, having earlier come 5th in the 4x100
.......................CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO SEE MAGNIFIED VIEW

Our u-17 Ladies team (L to R) Emily Hosker Thornhill, Megan Eeles, Scarlett Mann and Gemma Hambrook made the final of both sprint relays, finishing 5th in 4x100 and then jubilantly taking bronze in 4x200, making Emily HT the busiest athlete of the day with 3 finals
.....click underlined text for......Kent Relays 2009 - Results

Watford Graded Open Meetings 2009 -

Jake Rogers into country's top 20 with bold tactics at Watford

Despite many people away on family summer holidays, no fewer than 255 athletes turned up for the 1500m at Watford's high-revving August Open and 3 IEK young athletes coped admirably with exciting crowded starts as 15 athletes swept round in each of the 17 races on the night.
Pictured left are Amy Old (330) and Lilly Coward (331) at the start line of the first race : in her first outing at this distance Amy (12th) chased Lilly all the way to record 5 mins 41.84 (Grade 4) while Lilly's 5.32.76 (Grade 3) puts her 2nd in our 2009 rankings - both girls looked strong and both put in an impressive burst in the final 250m.
Race 11 had all the ingredients of a titanic clash..... Thurrock's Jessica Judd, the country's top u15 female against Kent's leading u15 Boy, our own Jake Rogers, ranked 24th in the country - her pb on the start line 1 second faster than his 4.22
Jake was alert to all changes of leader in the first 500m, then by going with the pace in the middle 500m he left the green-vested Judd trailing in 4th - click picture to view detail.
Instead of his usual surge 300m from home, Jake struck boldly at the bell to completely break the field and he is only the 3rd u15 IEK boy, behind Abbie Hayward (1999) and Alex Newson (2008) to break the 4 min 20 mark.
His new pb of 4.19.60 is now 2 seconds ahead of Judd's amazing pb and after accounting for other sharp u15s on the night, it takes him up to 17th in this year's u15 national rankings for boys.
Jake leads one of our strongest ever contingents at 1500m - no fewer than 6 'reds' are in the National Power-of-10 rankings : Luke Dawson (41st) is 2nd Kent, Jack Balsdon (73) is 4th Kent with Tonbridge's best, Sean Molloy between them. Jack Smith (447) Eddie Burton (478) are 19th & 20th Kent while Tommy Armstrong is 598th in the country and is Kent's 23rd boy in the national ranking.

Kent Young Athletes League 2009 -

Lilly Coward tops IEK ranking - Ellen Whitehead smashes best time

Anna Weston won 1,000m at Deangate to maintain a remarkable u-13 winning streak in the Kent League, while her close club rivals, Lilly Coward and Ellen Whitehead, were sweeping aside all opposition in a fast 600m.
Lilly's winning time of 1min 50.3 is a National Grade 2 and it takes her above Bobby Clay at the top of our under-13 rankings for this season, while Ellen Whitehead's massive pb by 10 secs not only won the B race by an equally convincing margin it also means she overtakes Anna Weston in our 600m rankings for 2009.
This is the first time 4 IEK girls have dipped under 2 minutes in the same season - we had 3 in each of 2006, 2007 and 2008 [see grey tab RIGHT 'Rankings & Records'] and it makes for exciting races at both the Kent u13 Championship and our club championship, in mid and end September.
Elsewhere, Molly Howson and Lydia Gallyer Barnett were 4th and 3rd respectively in the A & B 75m sprint, and these two combined with Lilly and Anna to post the best time by any u13 4x100 relay quartet this year - you can see the relay rankings at foot of 2009 T&F Rankings - FEMALES.
Under-13 boys Max Farnell (javelin & 200m) and Kieran Hawkins (shot, hurdles & high jump) did the red vest proud against much older opposition.
Under-15 Jaffer Adams came 3rd in 100m - the winner went on to also win the 400m, while the runner-up again got the better of Jaffer in the tightest of 200m races, both clocking the same time.
Jake Rogers romped 3,000m unchallenged in a Grade 3 time but it meant he missed the chance to race English Schools rival Sean Molloy (Tonbridge) at 1500m.
In the girls u-15 section, Annabel Carter was 6th and 2nd in 200m & 300m respectively and Anna Alvarez had a mixed day, winning javelin (grade 3) 3rd in hurdles (grade 4) and was 6th in the long jump.
IEK Boys & Gilrs combined were 6th overall in the team competition.
For details click underlined text
....Boys Kent League 2009 - Deangate
....Girls Kent League 2009 - Deangate

InterCounty Track & Field -

IEK field Magnificent 7 in Kent royal blue at Crawley's K2 stadium

Mac Cole (sprints) and Scarlett Mann (Long & Triple jumps) were joined by no fewer than 5 middle distance runners at the K2 stadium in Crawley for the 2009 Regional u17 Intercounty match involving 8 Southern counties.
Mac is pictured far RIGHT taking the baton for the anchor leg of the 4x100 relay, and Scarlett [pictured left] had to overcome a hamstring tweak (picked up during her less favoured Triple Jump) before taking on her favourite Long Jump.
In a quick 1500m, where his best this season would have put him 3rd or 4th, Alex Newson {4th from LEFT] looked out of sorts and was 11th in 4.17.43
Meanwhile, despite a bee sting in her shin the day before, Emily Hosker Thornhill (4.55.79) continued her return to form by beating two athletes with pb 10 secs faster than hers - the No.1 of both Hertfordshire and of Essex, pictured left [red vest, letter E].
The 800m was the best represented event with 3 IEK athletes selected : unluckiest on the day was our leading female Rebecca Weston who, after looking awsome in recent training, was forced to pull out on the start line when a groin injury from hockey training the day before wrecked all her plans for an assault on the 30 year-old overall female club record.
Sam Hudson (pictured right, tracking the orange vest of Hertfordshire) kept good shape to finish 7th in the 'B' race in 2.11.01 where the winners were posting times in the region of 1.57.
Kieran Reilly put in a lion-heart performance for 6th in a scintillating 'A' race : he boldly went with the early pace of 2 of the country's top 10 ranked athletes who are 1.55 men... passed the bell (with them) in 55-56 secs.... hung on gamely... and was duly rewarded with his best ever time of 2mins 01.67 and is now ranked 119th in UK - breaking the 2 minute barrier would put Kieran in the top 80.