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| European Junior Cup for Champion Clubs: Magnificent performances by Shaftesbury Junior Men ensure 3rd place overall | 19th Sep 2011 10:14:44 |
 Castellon 2011 - European U20 Champions Clubs Championships: Sam Outridge-Taylor - Silver medal in Javelin  Castellon 2011 - European U20 Champions Clubs Championships: Martyn Patterson bronze medal in 400m  Castellon 2011 - European U20 Champions Clubs Championships: Joe Sherry 3k steeplechase  Castellon 2011 - European U20 Champions Clubs Championships: Renard Frederick 200m  Castellon 2011 - European U20 Champions Clubs Championships: Greg Thompson leads the GB representatives in the teams parade  Castellon 2011 - European U20 Champions Clubs Championships: Team Bronze Trophy with Richard Goodman  Castellon 2011 - European U20 Champions Clubs Championships: Richard Charles wins 1500m  Castellon 2011 - European U20 Champions Clubs Championships:  Castellon 2011 - European U20 Champions Clubs Championships: Presentations by Roger Simons (EAA Meeting Director and ex-SBH President)  Castellon 2011 - European U20 Champions Clubs Championships: Shaftesbury team with Team Manager Geoff Morphitis  Castellon 2011 - European U20 Champions Clubs Championships: Josh Alexander-Passe  Castellon 2011 - European U20 Champions Clubs Championships:Richard Goodman winning 3000m seen tailing European U20 5k/10k Champion Gabriel Navarro A very focussed Humbug team met at Gatwick on Friday morning and flew to Valencia before travelling on to the brand new University of Jaume at Castellon track and familiarising the squad with the layout of the facilities, practising relays and loosening up with a series of strides. The hotel Inturorange provided superb accomodation with exceptional buffet style meals, swimming pools and recreational facilities with the beach just 200 metres away. What a fantastic opportunity this type of event provides for our talented upcoming youngsters. The experience of competing in a fully operational international meeting is a great step in each athlete's development while the importance of learning how to race at this level in what were very hot/humid conditions and in another country cannot be underestimated. The self discipline required to warm up effectively in a very hot climate, find appropriate shade, deal with call up arrangements in a foreign language and then ensure an appropriate cool down while still wishing to support your team mates is a tall order. There was a split programme which started in the morning before avoiding the midday sun and including an afternoon siesta before returning to the track at 4:15pm for the majority of events following the opening ceremony and parade of teams. The morning session saw UK No 1 Andrew Elkins contest the Hammer in which he placed 2nd with a throw of 66.20m behind European Junior finalist Jose Martin who had thrown over 73m earlier in the season. Gregory Thompson threw a new pb in the Shot with 13.93m to place 4th behind some monster athletes. Sprint relay member Bami Falana stepped bravely into the 400m Hurdles slot and recorded a pb 65.83secs in only his second attempt at this race - well done Bami (and a big thank you too!) 16 year old John Otugade ran a superb 10.91secs to place 2nd in the 100m while Jerome Musa-Lawal's non-scoring time of 11.03secs would have placed him 4th in the main competition. A welcome afternoon siesta preceeded the Opening Ceremony in which Greg Thompson carried the Union Jack for GB & NI. Sam Outridge-Taylor opened the evening session with 59.58m in the Javelin only to have victory snatched from him by the local thrower with the last throw of the competition - and by just 29cms! Blade Ashby ran a scintillating 110m Hurdles to go 7th in 2011 UK rankings with victory in a pb 14.33secs and a dominant performance. He followed with 6.93m in the Long Jump for 3rd place. A very good pair of performances. Zan Rudolf, European Junior Silver medallist dominated the 800m to front run victory in 1m49.84secs with our own UK U17 No 1 young Matthew McLaughlin chasing hard for 2nd place in 1m52.70secs - great job Matthew with the rest of the field decimated by the early pace of the race you ran a very sensible race and ensured good humbug points. Dean Oamen , yet another 16 year old Humbug, bounced out to 13.76m but the hard Mondo surface appeared to affect his rhythm. Nonetheless, this was a good debut performance at this level. European U20 finalist Docavo Vicente won with an impression 15.46m on a really sluggish run up. Martyn Patterson had some stiff opposition in the 400 metres and ran a very strong first half of the race only to be passed by two athletes in the home straight with the Russian(??) Radzhel Kashefrazov winning in 47.91secs with Martyn clocking 49.6secs in third. Joe Sherry had not run a 'chase over the 3000m distance but he was helped by a relatively conservative opening half to the race. 8m46secs Turkish European Junior silver meadallist Muhammet Emin Tan ran away to victory in the second half of the race but Joe responded well and will have been pleased with his 9m48.38secs 5th place despite being beaten by 100ths of a second on the line when a medal position was within his grasp - not bad on his debut. He will also have noted how close he was to athletes who have recorded times at least 30 secs faster!. Consistent 2m+ jumper Alan Smith cleared his opening height of 1.95m with ease but inexplicably could not repeat his 2.06m performance at the NJL finals the previous weekend and had to be satisfied with 3rd place in a relatively contest won in a modest 2.02m. Renard Frederick , running in his last U20 race, drew the outside lane in the 200m and blasted away from the field to hold the lead until about 20 metres from the finish and just missing third place by one hundredth of a second with his 22.58 secs clocking. In the Pole Vault Josh Alexander-Passe claimed 6th with 3.60m but he bravely realised that to gain an extra place he needed to pass to 4.00m at which he had 3 very good efforts. A lesson learned here as his poles were left in the full glare of the hot sun throughout the day as insensitive officials took out all the equipment in the morning. The slow pace of the opening 2 laps of the 1500 metres played totally into the hands of fast finisher Richard Charles who has been in a rich vein of late season form as he blasted away over the last 200m to finish 5 seconds in front of the second placer Morcilli with a time of 3m57.78secs and a last 200m in 26.5secs! Richard Goodman faced tough oppositon in the 3000m as local hero and European Junior 5000m and 10000m champion Gabriel Navarro and the Czech Gazda set off at 62secs/65secs (sub 8mins pace) over the first 2 laps with Richard sitting back economically before easing up to the leaders with 1k to go. Navarro mixed up the pace as Richard sat on him before making a break for home with 400m to go and building a small lead. The home club athlete made a big effort with 200m to go and went past but despite the support of the local crowd could not hold off the fast finishing Humbug in what was the best race and finish of the day and a skillfully run race! A real tonic for Richard as he goes to Kenya and altitude training this week. Back in the field events new U17 UK Discus Record holder Nick Percy moved up to the heavier U20 Discus and placed 3rd with 48.92m which was a good result. European U20 Champiosnships 9th placer Wojciech Praczyk (a Polish athlete competing for Castellon) won with 56.58m. The final relays were both exciting and of a very high quality. Shaftesbury's sprinters Jerome Musa-Lawal, Renard Frederick, Bami Falana and fast finishing John Otugade grapped 3rd place in a season's best 42.85secs - following the debacle in Derby only days before this was a really top performance and credit to the lads and their relay coach Kyle Andrew. The final race of the day had the crowd jumping up and down in the stands as Matt McLaughlin (50.8secs) completed the first leg a clear 2nd. As the 500 metres stagger unfolded Harry Sagel (50.8secs) entered the back straight head to head with the Spanish and Czech teams. Harry lost a bit of ground around the last bend only to charge down the home straight and claim second place before Richard Charles (48.9secs) ran down the leader to give Martyn Patterson (49.6secs) a 6 metres advantage going into the last leg. A great opening leg took him well clear before the individual Turkish/Russian (whatever!?) 400m individual winner (apparently clocking a 46.4secs split) got away in the final straight only to be nearly caught by Martyn in the final strides. The margin of victory was under 0.2secs with the four humbugs recording a fantastic 3m19.92secs! A very tired group of athletes returned to England on Sunday afternoon having enjoyed a splendid occasion with almost all of them still eligible to take part again in 2012. The following report appears on the EAA website this morning ...... Spain’s Playas de Castellon and Italy's Audacia Record Atletica came out on top at the European Champion Clubs Cup Junior Group A match in the Spanish town of Castellon on Saturday. The men’s pre-event favourites Castellon, obviously helped by home advantage, defended the title they won 12 months ago in Bydgoszcz but only by the very slimmest of margins. The hosts and the Turkish club Fenerbahce Spor Kulubu both had totals of 103 points, and seven individual victories each, and so the deciding factor came down to the Spanish team having more second place finishes, five to three for their rivals, which enabled them to take the trophy for the second year in succession. British club Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers were thrid on 81pts The three performers in the men's competition to particularly impress were the Spanish triple jumper Vicente Docavo, who came from behind in the last round to win with a wind-assisted 15.46m with his Turkish opponent Musa Tuzen holding pole position with 15.42m; Spanish hammer thrower Pedro José Martín, who achieved 69.81m in the second round, his only legal throw of the competition; and Slovenia's 2011 European Athletics Junior Championships 800m silver medallist Zan Rudolf, competing for AD Mass Ljubljana, who won very comfortably over two laps of the track and crossed the line nearly three seconds clear of the rest of the field in 1:49.84. One surprise was another European junior champion in Tallinn, Spain's 5000m and 10000m winner Gabriel Navarro, finishing second in the 3000m behind Britain's Richard Goodman. After a sprint for the line down the home straight, Goodman finished in 8:19.60 with Navarro behind him in 8:19.90. Audacia Record Atletica had a lot more comfortable a victory in the women's competition totalling102.5 points to become the first Italian team ever to win the women's competition. They finished ahead of 2010 winners Fenerbahce, who were second with 85 points, while Britain's Blackheath and Bromley Harriers were third with 81 points. The big heroine for the Italian team was 18-year-old Dariya Derkach, who was originally from Ukraine but who is now waiting for Italian citizenship. She won the 100m hurdles and long jump with marks of 13.83 and 6.21m respectively and also helped her team get maximum points in the 4x100m relay with a strong anchor leg. There two notable performances in the throws. Hungary's Krisztina Varadi, who was fifth in the discus at the 2011 European Athletics Junior Championships and on this occasion competing for the Serbian club AC Novi Beograd, threw her implement out to 50.26 and also won the shot. Turkey's 2011 European Athletics Junior Championships hammer silver medallist Kivilcim Kaya didn't get close to her junior national record of 66.74m that she achieved in Tallinn but got a respectable distance of 57.26m and her two other valid throws went or 56 metres, which would have been sufficient to win the competition. | |