Montell Douglas has not had much of a Summer season as she spent a number of weeks during the Winter on crutches after a knee operation. The Blackheath & Bromley athlete did, however, gain selection for the Great Britain team for the 4x100 metres at the European Championships in Barcelona. However, hopes of salvaging something from the season disappeared with some faulty baton changes. The quartet did not finish in a qualifying place and were not one of the fastest losers either.
Being in Barcelona, Montell was not available to compete in the last UK Womens League Premier Division match of the season at Eton. Highlight here was a new personal best and Club Junior Record for Katrina Cosby in the 400 hurdles as she finished in second place in the A string event. Her time of 59.71 is the fastest by an under 20 athlete in the country this year. She also ran a personal best of 25.42 in the B string 200 metres. It was no surprise that she was the Club’s Athlete Of The Match Bryony Proctor finished second place in the 3000 metres with a new personal best of 9.47.1 and Savannah Echel Thompson was third in the A string 400 metres in 55.86. The final top three placing went to the 4x100 metre relay team of Megan Southwart, Serita Solomon, Emily Martin and Vickie Cole.
Despite these good performances the team was too depleted to compete with the top teams in the country and they finished last on the day and last for the season in the Premier Division. This is the first major disappointment for the womens side since they gained entry to the UK Womens League and given the talent in the squad they should feature prominently in Division One next season.
The men were in action in their British League Division One home fixture at Norman Park. They performed well with the highlight being at the end of the meeting, a new Club Record of 3.11.59 for the 4x400 quartet of Bomene Barikor, Ed Harrison, Alloy Wilson and Dan Putnam.
Other highlights included a near clean sweep in the sprints with James Alaka and Tremayne Gilling sharing wins in the A and B string 100 and 200 metres. Alloy Wilson won the B string 400, and although Bomene Barikor did not win the A string event he was rewarded with a new best of 48.22 in finishing 4th in a race in which every runner was under 49 seconds.
His was one of a number of personal bests headed by Alex Bruce Littlewood who took eight seconds off his previous best in finishing third in the 3000 steeplechase with 9.10.82. Others came from Phil Sesemann (5000 metres), Jake Haylock (Hammer), Dale Willis (long jump), Mark Longhurst (pole vault), Alex Pope (shot) and Mike Van Den Dobblesteen (javelin).
This gave them fourth place in the match and leaves them fourth in the table with just one match remaining in Liverpool in three weeks time.
Hosting the British League match meant the team that travelled to Cambridge for the final Southern Mens League match of the season was very depleted. It was no surprise that the squad finished last of the five teams on the day. The result meant that they finished the season in 19th place in the table out of 25 teams. This should mean they have just avoided being relegated.
Best event for the Club was the 1500 metres in which Ian Frith and Stephen Cavey finished second in both the A and B strings. Sufiyan Sultan and Bruno Myszka-Reder scored valuable points in the sprints and Richard Hall, Chris Daniel and Ross Braden performed heroics competing in many different events.
Further news on all these matches can be found at www.bandbhac.org.uk
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