Tough weekend for seniors
Monday 4 July 2011
Cardiff senior men's British League and senior women's UK Women's League teams both struggled against quality oppositions in their second round matches on Saturday last, 2nd July.
Both teams finished eighth and last in their respective matches, the men at Copthall, London, and the women in Edinburgh.
With only one match remaining, the women look destined for relegation and the men, with two matches, will have to pull out all the stops to avoid a similar fate.
Men's team manager James Williams reports:
On a very warm afternoon in North London, the men's team battled hard and were mid-table for most of day before finally succumbing to a lack of depth in the field and finishing in 8th place once again.
The day started positively with European and Commonwealth Medallist Rhys Williams winning the 400m hurdles comfortably, in a time of 49.94. Making his debut for the club in the B event, Callem Forde ran a strong race to finish 2nd in 54.02.
Rhys was also involved in the best race of the day, the men's 4x400m relay - the Cardiff team led for most of the race before Newham and Essex Beagles just pipped anchor leg runner Glyn Hawkes. The men are getting closer to the club record as they ran a time of 3:13.58 - including a 46.2 leg by Rhys Williams.
In the sprints, some late withdrawals meant that the team wasn't finalised until the morning of the competition. Gareth Price doubled up, running a 10.97 into a headwind in the 100m and a 22.02 in the 200m. Liam Duff's return to competition will have to wait a few more weeks as he was DQ'd in the 100m. Rhys Knapman ran a season's best of 22.18 in the B 200m and all three men along with Miton Baker ran superb legs in the 4 x100, clocking 41.91 from lane one.
In the long sprint, Tom Miller finally broke through the 48sec barrier - running a PB of 47.90 for third; this was enough to make him Cardiff's man of the match. In the B 400m Glyn Hawkes showed that he was getting back into shape with a seasons best of 48.79 for second.
In the endurance events, Joe Maynard made his first appearance of the summer, battling hard against many of the country's top runners, including former Olympic finalist Anthony Whiteman. He ended up running 1:51.23 in sixth place. In the B 800m, Mike Kershaw ran another good race, finishing 5th in 1:53.37.
There was a big PB for Jon Peters in the 1500m, as he broke 4min for the first time with a 3:56.97 clocking. James Mills got caught at the back when the big move was made and couldn't get back to the main pack - he ran 3:58.31 for 3rd in the B. Kev Seaward made his BAL debut as he ran a very strong 8:25.49 in the 3k - club stalwart Alex Haines, fresh from his recent 10k pb, ran 8:31.78 for third in the B.
Chris Discombe did all the running in the steeplechase but got outkicked over the last 600m finishing 3rd in a respectable 9:17.11 - Chris who plans to return back to his native Australia at the end of the summer surely can't leave without winning at least one Premiership steeplechase.
In the field, debutant Curtis Matthews posted a season's best in the discus - not bad considering he was also competing in the pole vault at the same time. Curtis also competed in the shot - here he battled with returning training partner David Guest and it was good to see David return to British League competition, nearly two years since his last appearance.
Matt Ledger as always has a busy day and his highlight was a 1.80m high jump - it was a shame that his favourite event took place after he had thrown the hammer, run the 110H and contested the pole vault. In the javelin, Jason Hallet had a frustrating day as he managed 51.34m - short of his pre-competition expectations. Former Olympic finalist Nick Nieland won with a last round throw.
Accompanying Matt in the high jump was Lewis Long. Lewis who retired from competing in the winter, answered a late call to compete to post a solid 1.75m; not bad considering he wasn't competing two hours before the bus left Cardiff on Friday night.
In the jumps, Gary White couldn't repeat his heroics of match 1 and finished 3rd in the triple jump with a season best of 15.63m. Adam Williams made his club debut jumping 13.62m in the triple and 6.51m in the long jump. Ricardo Childs finished strongly, his best long jump coming in the 5th round with 7.18m for 4th.
The team now needs to finish strongly in the last two matches and try to pull off a miracle and avoid an immediate return to the First Division. The overall standard of the match on Saturday was very high - with events like the high jump won in 2.28m, discus in 63m and hammer in 71m. Hopefully after a season in the Premiership, the Cardiff athletes will know what to expect and will prioritise the competition. We in Wales always complain that we do not have a sufficient level of competition and therefore the British League must be embraced as an important part of an athlete's season.
The match result was:
1. Newham & Essex Beagles (347)
2. City of Manchester (Sale H) (314)
3. Shaftesbury Barnet H (306)
4. Woodford Green & Essex Ladies (281)
5. Birchfield Harriers (274)
6. City of Sheffield (229)
7. Enfield & Haringey (217)
8. Cardiff AAC (212)
To view the complete results of the men's match click on RESULTS.
The ladies had an equally torrid time in Edinburgh with a team weakened by absentees and too many events without any Cardiff representative. Those athletes who travelled did their best with several athletes doing multiple events to help the team cause.
Best performer, and athlete of the match, was Charlotte Arter who won the 1500m A race and came second in the 800m A with personal best of 2:09.76. She also competed in the high jump.
Charlotte receiving her athlete of the match award from club captain Emma Peters
The match score was:
1. Windsor, Slough & Eton (193)
2. Birchfield H (186)
3. City of Manchester (173)
4. Trafford (169.5)
5. Edinburgh (163)
6. Enfield & Haringey (145)
7. Woodford Green & Essex Ladies (131)
8. Cardiff AAC (89.5)