Stratford Athletic Club juniors continue to shine

RECORDS tumbled and new personal bests were set once again by Stratford AC members at the Nuneaton Spring Special Open Meeting at the Pingles Stadium on Saturday.

The Pingles has become the go-to stadium for this type of event since restrictions allowed them to go ahead, and 16 athletes from Stratford travelled to Nuneaton to compete in the Spring Special Open Meeting.

The ever-improving Taylor Stubbins record a new PB of 4:15.06 in the 1,500m. This time was also a club record, with Stubbins breaking his own record from a few weeks ago.

Also in the 1,500m was Niamh Hillard, who took seven seconds off her previous PB to complete the race in 5:07.86.

The other club record to tumble was the U17 3,000m.

Alex Adams, 15, knocked 11 seconds off the previous record by clocking 9:22.56, a huge 30 seconds off his previous PB that was recorded a couple of years ago. There were new PBs for Dave Wilson, who ran a time of 62.02s in the 400m and 13.33s in the 100m.

Tessa Parkin recorded a PB of 13.47s in the 70m hurdles and clocked 2:51.62 in the 800m.

Also in the 800m, Martha Peters’s time of 2:34.31 was a couple of seconds off her previous best time.

Stratford’s final 800m runner was Anne Silver, who came home in 2:42.24.

Ruby Edwards equalled her PB in the long jump with a jump of 3.82m. She also completed the 75m hurdles in 14.62s.

The other Stratford hurdler was Seb Hillard. He has moved up an age group this year, progressing from 75m to 80m hurdles events.

He ran the race in 15.47s before making an appearance in the U15 javelin event for the first time, where he threw 24.28m. Also moving up to the U15s in the javelin was Alex McMillan, who threw 21.24m.

U13 athlete Alex Wood was just 1cm off his personal best in the long jump with a jump of 3.56m, while Elfric McKenzie was 3cm off his best with 3.92m.

It was a busy day for Wood who, in his first official 100m and 200m races, ran times of 15.23s and 30.33s respectively.

Ameena Asad competed in both the 100m and 70m hurdles, clocking times of 16.58s and 19.13s respectively.

In the shot put, U13 Arthur Mansbridge was competing for the very first time and recorded a throw of 3.67m, while V45 athlete Paula Williams dusted off the cobwebs to throw 11.34m.

Finally, Birmingham University student and club member Imogen Sheppard ran 58.04s in the 400m, just 0.34s off her personal best.