ATHLETICS: British records and titles for club's masters athletes

The British Masters indoor athletics pentathlon Championships and Southern Master Masters open event at Lee Valley, London, was well supported by seven Rugby & Northampton athletes.

All managed season bests, as well as four British records and two national titles between them - despite being hampered in their training due to the weather making jumping areas unusable.

The club’s oldest competitor John Evans at a mere 85 years old set the ball rolling with season’s bests in the 60m 11.51s and 200m 42.74s, both a fraction off the national records, but then went on to set British and Welsh records in the long jump 2.75m and triple jump 5.83m.

Sally Hine carried on the records while competing in the British pentathlon championship W70. Opening with a British record in the 60m Hurdles 12.44s, and finishing with the British record for the pentathlon of 3674, breaking the previous record by over 500 points.

In between she had a season’s best in the high jump 1.11m, LJ 3.05m, Shot 6.11m and 800m 3:51.50s.

Dave Cowley competed in the Men’s M70 indoor pentathlon picking up the British title for 2020. His performances were; 60mH 11.32, LJ 3.78m, Shot 9.58m, HJ 1.23m and 1000m 5:08.17 with an overall score of 3069pts.

The younger members were also in action; Adie Monk M40 setting a PB in the 60m 8.10s, Janelle Quinn W45 a PB in the 60m 9.02 and SB in LJ 4.19m. Gemma Knight W35 set a SB in the 400m 64.24s.

Finally Craig Christian had a good workout with 3 track events, PB in the 60m 7.97s, PBs (indoor) 200m 25.94 and 400m 59.04.

The following weekend seven more R&N athletes travelled down to Lee valley to represent the Midlands in an Inter Area competitition.

Angela Copson, although not at her fittest, led the W70 800m from start to finish.

Sally Hine W70, covered the 60m 10.30s 1st (meeting record), LJ 3.10m 1st, and shot 6.16m 2nd - all season’s bests.

Then the two of them dropped down to the W60 to help win the 4x200m relay.

Dave Cowley improved his performances of the previous week, Shot 9.78m 3rd and HJ 1.24m 1st, also running in the M70 winning relay team.

The rest of the ladies all competed in the W35-49 age group; Gemma was back with a PB in the 400m 63.1-3rd. Janelle in the LJ 4.32m 3rd and TJ 8.41m both PBs indoors and placing her 4th in the rankings for both. Sprinters Ellena Ruddock’s W40 200m 27.26s and Karen Gomes W35 60m 8.28s placed them 1st and 6th respectively in their age group rankings.

Janelle, Ellena and Karen then carried the W35 relay team to a complete sweep of first places with relay members from R&N.

The Midlands won the men’s and women’s trophy plus the overall trophy - the first time region has managed a full house.