PETE’S POST – JUNE 2023
The T&F season is well underway! It was great to be at Peterborough to see so many C&C athletes performing so well over so many different events. Lots of P.B.’s, lots of Championship medals, many of which were golds. Congratulations to all of our new Cambridgeshire County Champions! Our athletes won medals across the Age Groups from Under 13 to Over 60. From the Walks to Sprints. From the throwing, jumping, hurdles, to the longer distance races, we were there. The picture shows the three C&C athletes that gave the club a clean sweep in the 3k Race Walk : Gill Bridger (Gold), Jane Mansley (Silver) and Pamela Abbott (Bronze). Pamela had been undefeated since Race Walking was first introduced to the County Championships in 2014! Her winning reign comes to an end, but at least it was other C&C athletes that finally beat her!
As already reported, Leah Wagstaff went to the top of the U17 G.B. rankings with her 80m Hurdles time! Congratulations to all who took part in the Championships, and to all the coaches. What a great feeling it is for them to see their athletes perform so well when it matters. All of that time and effort put in by athlete and coach coming together! Very rewarding for each.
Learn from the bad days, but enjoy the good days, because there will be plenty of both!
It was also great to see so many C&C people there supporting the event as officials. The whole day went off so smoothly because their efforts in the background. We applaud you all!
Now it’s back to the leagues. We were in second place out of the 6 teams at the first SAL match of the season. Well done to all those that took part. There were some fine performances there, but now we need to aim to go one better and win the next one. It’s at home, on Sunday 18th June. Let’s have a great turn-out across all the events and show what we can do!
Great work is being done by the coaches and Team Management in building our Masters T&F team. New athletes are joining, and others coming back. It’s great to see, you are all so welcome. I’m sure there will be another great showing at the next Masters Meet on Wednesday 7th June. Again, it’s at our home track.
The next EAL may have already happened by the time you read this as it’s on Sunday 4th at Bury St. Edmunds.
Very best of luck to everyone at all of these events.
It’s difficult to keep track of club’s high level successes at the moment. They are coming thick and fast, and it’s such an exciting time for the club. As already reported, C&C athletes had an amazing night of results at the Manchester Grand Prix. By the time you read this Jack Grey and Hannah Irwin will have run for G.B. in the European 10,000m Cup in France. Only 6 athletes in the G.B. team, C&C are providing two of them! Thomas Bridger is absolutely flying! He has gained the European U23 qualifying time in the 3k S/Chase, the only athlete to have done so at the time of writing.
The club is getting some good press coverage at a National level at the moment. There was a full double page article about Hannah Irwin in the latest AW magazine, and Pulse, the England Athletics newsletter, recently featured Jack Grey and Callum Elson.
However, we could do more regarding getting our club news and successes into the local press. We have our [email protected] set up and waiting for your stories. What we could really do with, to help with this process, is having someone to gather up the news stories on a regular basis, and submit them to Julia (at the news@ address). She will happily do the rest. (i.e. submit to the press and/or put onto Facebook etc). Would you be interested in doing this? Getting stories into the local press can be very encouraging for our athletes, and could potentially attract new members too. Please let me know if you think this is something that you might be able to help with. [email protected] . It is potentially a really satisfying and enjoyable role, and would help to raise the club’s profile in the city and surrounding area.
The club could also benefit from having a few more “Leaders in Run Fitness”. In this role you would be assisting the coach, and therefore the athletes as well. Even when “on duty” in the role, you could almost certainly still do the session yourself. Just two evenings a month would be a fantastic help and contribution. All training would be paid for by the club. Again, please let me know if you are interested. It would be a great way of helping C&C.
Have a fantastic June, good luck in all your competitions, wear the colours with pride!