Oxfordshire Athletics

Iffley Road hosted a BMC Grand Prix meeting on 23 July. A top quality event was assured with a comeback sub-4 minute mile by Andy Baddeley and an Olympic qualifying mark in the Women’s 800 A race.

Baddeley, who was UK’s top-ranked 1500m runner for the period 2006-08, has had his recent career blighted by injury and ill health. At Iffley Road the Harrow AC athlete posted serious intentions of a revival in recording a time of 3:59.46.

Congratulations to Tom Anstice for his pb of 64.16m at the YDL UASG meeting at Wormwood Scrubs on 24 July. This new mark took him to 7th in the National U20 Men’s Javelin rankings.

Due to the increased and concerning number of throws near misses in both training and competition, UKA have put together a Throws Safety Communique to make sure the athletics track is a safe place for athletes, coaches, officials and facility operators.

Top Five Throwing Safety Essentials:

Horspath Road hosted the SEAA Combined Events Championships on the weekend of 16th & 17th July.

The stand-out performer for Oxfordshire was Tim Stephens (OCAC), a comfortable winner of the U20 Decathlon with a pb score of 6355 points. This total took the 18 year-old up to 5th in the national rankings. Coached by Marcia Marriott, Tim’s track marks were particularly strong and included a time of 50.58 for a clear win in the 400, 15.45 for the 110 Hurdles, and 4:26.33 for the final event, the 1500.

For the second consecutive week, Warriner schoolgirl, Emily Thompson excelled in the highest level of schools competition. Selected on the basis of her silver medal in the English Schools at Gateshead, Emily again finished 2nd to ESAA victor Khahisa Mhlanga in the Schools International at Ashford, on 16th July. Her determined run of 2:13.07 saw the Banbury Harrier lead home the other home nations representatives, behind only her English compatriot.

Ben Claridge won a superb gold medal in the Senior Boys’ 400m at Gateshead on 9th July. Benefiting from an increased emphasis on speed training, the Tom King-trained athlete had been the fastest qualifier in the previous day’s heats (47.97). The White Horse Harrier then went on to record 47.83 for a convincing victory in the final.

The County is hosting the U15/U20 Southern Inter-Counties fixture on Sunday 21 August. To the present, there have been no offers of help with the team managing. If the county is to send teams to this (home) meeting, please can some of you offer to help! I cannot guarantee to be able to undertake this task on this occasion. Please don't let the athletes down!

John Sear
Chairman, OAA

The closing date for nomination for Regional /National Awards is 31st July. Why not make a nomination?

Make your nominations on the England Athletics website.

Only one nomination is required for your club, a coach or official, a Run England group, a volunteer or a project to be considered.

The categories are as follows and all it takes is 250 words…

The 25 strong team selected to represent Oxfordshire at the ESAA Championships for this year is drawn from 9 local clubs and 16 different schools across the County. Once again we have a preponderance of throwers (9) who are joined by 4 hurdlers, 8 sprinters, 3 middle distance runners and a solitary jumper.

Oxfordshire AA is sad to report the death of Margaret Strange, aged 70, on 15^th May 2016.

Margaret was a Life Vice President of the County AA and will be greatly missed by the Oxfordshire Athletics community, as well as her immediate family for whom she was a much-loved mother and grandmother.