After extensive work to prepare for the Southern Road Relay Championship, culminating in 2 hard days of preparing the course. The day of competition arrive with bright sunshine and some fantastic races, and behind the scenes AFD members continued to deliver a fantastic day of athletics.
Aldershot Farnham & District runner Poppy Guest anchored the club’s trio of under 18 women to victory in the South of England Road Relay Championships, held in and around Rushmoor Arena on Saturday. Second leg runner Otelia Garcia Davis had taken over from Tilly Robertson and promoted the team to second before Guest, fifth in the 3000 metres at this summer’s European u18s’ championships, recorded the second fastest leg overall to finish nineteen seconds ahead of Windsor Slough Eton & Hounslow.
AFD achieved their their fourth consecutive title in the senior women’s four stage championship. Millie Jordan-Lee finished fourth on the opener, 30 seconds behind City of Plymouth’s Poppy Tank who was 29th in this year’s World Cross Country Championships. Emily Moyes then improved to second before Harriet Preedy took the lead that Niamh Brown extended to the finish.
Contesting their category alongside the seniors were the women over 40 and here AFD led throughout. Lucy Wright opened with a time that was not beaten during the rest of the competition, Clare Rees ran second and Karen Andrews the anchor for a margin of more than two minutes. The club’s over 50 men also won. Simon Cooper’s time for second on the first leg proved to be the second fastest overall. Richard Smith and Thomas Wilson held second before Mark Symes clinched gold on the last leg.
AFD’s under 14 girls were silver medallists. It was a position they held from the first leg where Lucy Scallan clocked the third quickest time overall before handing over to Emily Walmsley who was followed by Evie Jones. Bronze medals went to the club in the senior men’s six stage contest . They were second after legs by Joe Blacknell, Onjoro Sumba, Theo Doran, Tom Chandler and Sam Eglen but Alex Pointon was overtaken on the anchor by Nathan Mapperley who ran the second fastest time overall to gain the silver medals for Cambridge & Coleridge. Koko O’Neill was third fastest overall when she improved ten places for AFD’s fifth in the u16 girls’ race.
Aldershot Farnham & District runner Poppy Guest anchored the club’s trio of under 18 women to victory in the South of England Road Relay Championships, held in and around Rushmoor Arena on Saturday. Second leg runner Otelia Garcia Davis had taken over from Tilly Robertson and promoted the team to second before Guest, fifth in the 3000 metres at this summer’s European u18s’ championships, recorded the second fastest leg overall to finish nineteen seconds ahead of Windsor Slough Eton & Hounslow.