News

Instead of a trip to the beach 16 SNHAC/HAWCS athletes and 6 Officials made the trip to Kings Park Bournemouth for the second Youth Development League Match of the season. Thanks must go to Jane and Aimee Taylor who made the round trip from Nottingham, Phil and Julie Laws who broke into their holiday, along with Sally Stevens and Sarah Berry for providing the Officials required for the match. The Club received at 20 point deduction for not having a L2 Field Official (Norma tested positive for Covid Saturday morning and was unable to travel), so instead of 48 points the team only received 28 for Officials.
The 17 athletes produced some great performances/PBs and filled as many events as possible to gain points.
U17’s Esme Searle and Aubrey Murray won the steeplechase and Ben Lewis TJ, U20’s Aimie Taylor won the A PV, HJ and B string TJ, Daniel Kanu HJ and Jamie Timms A JT and B LJ.
Also competing were Kamila Adebayo, Laurena Dawkins, Megan Thomas, Georgia Sutcliffe, Ruby Cheshire, Maisie Newton, Tallulah Taylor, Abigail Manson, Hugo MacFarlane Cushing and Edward Turner.
Team Manager Tallulah Taylor was delighted by the team spirit and would like to see all the Club’s U17 and U20 athletes in action at the last YDL of the season on the 30th June at Perivale.
Full results are on the Club website.

A record 35 club members took part in the first 10k midweek league road race on Wednesday evening. For the men Chris Westcott (37.16) led the way, coming 8th with Adam Seale one place behind in a time of 37.29. Aubrey Murray, making his league debut, was next home in 38.59.

Abigail Manson was SNHAC's first woman home in 12th place (44.46), folllowed by Rebecca Pickard in 27th (47.21). Caitlin Evans was 64th in 54.17.

The team finished 5th out of the 10 teams in the division and are looking forward to race 2 at Royston on Tuesday 4th June.

The full results for all 35 SNHAC runners can ne found on the results page.

Up against Peterborough & Nene Valley, Harlow, Cambridge & Coleridge, Huntingdonshire A.C. and Ryston Runners at Stevenage, the SNHAC/HAWCS composite team won the match by 23 points from Peterborough. This was Huntingdonshire A.C’s home match as their pole vault and hammer cage needed repair.

There was a great team spirit, athletes stepped in to fill gaps and a good shift was put in by the U17s and Vets, to support the Seniors, which got good points. It was pleasing to dominate the men’s sprints, women’s hurdles and pole vault. Nile Odejimi-Riley and Bobby Pitman won the A 100 11.2 and 200m 23.0 respectively. The B strings were won by Bobby Pitman 11.6 and Hugo MacFarlane-Cushing 23.4. Shannon Rapacchi and Sandra Reed won the A and B 110H and Fran Hart and Sandra Reed won the A and B 400H. Shannon Rapacchi and Aimee Taylor won the A and B pole vault, both clearing 3m30. Tommy Cropley won the 800m in a new PB of 1.58.7, Ed Laws the 400H 55.3, Henry Bennet the JT 42m94, Annabel Howells the 400m 57.8 and Shannon Rapacchi the TJ 10m04. There were B string wins for Hugo MacFarlane-Cushing in his first TJ 11m46 and Aimee Taylor in the HJ 1m40.

The next match is the Club’s home match on the 15th June.

The first YDL, in the new division, was a home match for the SNHAC youngsters on Sunday. Having gained promotion in 2023 the Club finds itself in a 7 team league against much stronger competition and larger Clubs.
The 35 youngsters in action acquitted themselves well, but gaps on the team sheet meant they couldn’t hold onto the second place they held until the last hour. Reading came out winners by 250 points with Wycombe and Chiltern 2nd, Bournemouth 3rd, Stevenage 4th, Team West London 5th, Vales of Aylesbury 6th and Kingston 7th.
There were A string wins for U17 Emily Rapley LJ (over 5m for the first time) and Ben Lewis TJ and B string wins from Abigail Tonge 300H and LJ. In the U20 age group there were A string wins for Annabelle Howells 200m, Jessica Astill 400m, Aimie Taylor PV, Will Galliford 800m and Jamie Timms JT. B string wins came from Imogen Rose 800m, Daniel Kanu 100m and Bobby Pitman 200m. The U20 women won the 4x100 and the mixed U20 team won the last event of the day - 4x400m.
Team Manager Tallulah Taylor was delighted with the performances from all the athletes and is looking forward to the next match at Bournemouth on the 26thMay.
Full result and photos on the website

The London Marathon saw great performances from two club athletes, Chris Westcott ran a pb of 2 hours 47 minutes 10 seconds. Running her first ever marathon Rebecca Pickard saw her training pay dividends as she completed the race in 4 hours 10 minutes 27 seconds.

Thanks to Sharon Crowley for the photo of Chris.