Stratford AC's juniors sparkle at Diamond League meeting

WHILE Mo Farah was bringing 10,000 spectators to their feet as he broke the British 3,000m record at the Diamond League meeting at the Alexander Stadium, 16 Stratford AC athletes were basking in the knowledge they had run their hearts out in the UKA ClubConnect inter club relays earlier in the day.

The relays were contested by seven other Midlands clubs and were the opening events of the meeting with each team comprising two girls and two boys.

Apart from the exhilaration and excitement of competing at such a prestigious meeting, the event is a great learning experience for the youngsters, particularly as the teams went through the same procedure as the international athletes, who surrounded them in the warm-up and call-up areas in the stadium’s high performance centre.

The under-13s were the first team out and with the stadium already half full, Millie Leighton led the Stratford team off and passed to George Fox-Rowe on the long leg on the back straight.

He passed to Tanya Mukumbira and then on to Adam Farrow on the last leg, who did his best to stay with the other teams finishing in fifth place behind a quick Birchfield Harriers team.

The first three Stratford under-15s — Beth Cate, Zephan Boxall and Imogen Sheppard — ran brilliantly, nearly running themselves to a standstill before Alex Evans on the last leg really was almost brought to a standstill when he found another athlete in his lane as he took the baton.

The Stratford team were still in contention for the lead at this stage and Evans had to check himself and swerve around the athlete to complete the race in third, only 0.2 secs off second place.

Before the under-17 race, the team were quietly confident of doing well after three weeks of relay training, but they came up against two very speedy teams from Birchfield and the eventual surprise winners Halesowen.

Dani Horton ran a strong first leg and Jack Sumners flew down the back straight to be in the lead before the two other teams played trump cards by having the two fastest girls in the Midlands on their third legs.

Jess Sheppard ran a typical gutsy leg to stay in contention before Ollie Cresswell took the baton to finish the race in third, just half a second off second place.

The under-20 team had under-17 athletes Emily Madden-Forman and Dan Boyd on the first two legs and what fantastic runs they both had.

Madden-Forman was straight into her long stride at the gun and Boyd powered down the back straight before passing to Issy Cain Daley on the third leg, holding off fierce competition from the other teams before passing to Rory Dwyer.

By the time of the last changeover, Dwyer could already see the back of the last Birchfield runner but he ran a blistering leg to take the team home in second place.

Afterwards, the Stratford athletes were not surprisingly buzzing from the excitement of the competition.

Joint team manager, Mike Sheppard, said: “What a privilege to bring our athletes to a high pressure event like the Diamond League and to see them perform so brilliantly with slick baton changes and great teamwork.

“Considering that sprinting isn’t the main focus for most of our athletes they did themselves proud against some of quickest teams of specialist sprinters around.”