Busy week for Hunts AC club - News - LIVING SPORT

Busy week for Hunts AC club

Last week (31st May – 5th June) was a busy one for Huntingdonshire Athletic Club members has three meets were held across the county and region.

The first meet was the mid-week Eastern Veterans League Three Counties Division match held at the Cambridge University track.

Thirteen of the club’s veterans competed with Wayne DuBose topping the club honours list with three wins out of three in the M50 group. DuBose started the ball rolling with a season’s best in the pole vault and followed up with a win in the discus before javelin, success after taking a second round lead.

60 year old William Bradley took part in his first ever 1 mile walk and didn’t hold back as he established a new club record for M40’s and above, while In the M40 800m, Peter Downhill confidently claimed victory in the M40 800m. This was especially impressive as he had finished 2nd in the 400m hurdles just 40 minutes earlier.

The men’s team finished third on the night behind Milton Keynes and Bedford, but are still strongly in contention to qualify for the Eastern Veterans final in September.

On the women’s side, Sue Cahill established a new record for the women’s club 1 mile walk and later followed up with a comfortable five-metre win in the W35 javelin event.

Revelation of the evening was Sandra Pedley who set a club veterans record in the pole vault, reduced her best in the 200m by two seconds and added almost a foot to her triple jump best. This was from a woman who took part in her first athletics competition for the first time last month since her school days.

The second event of the week was the third of six meets in Division 3N of the Southern Men’s League. For a variety of reasons, the team were missing two runners from both the 800m and 5000m and also one runner each from the 110m hurdles and the 3000m steeplechase.

Despite this significant handicap, the team pulled out all the stops with a host of outstanding performances, including clean sweeps in both strings of the 100m, 200m, and 400m as well as wins in both the 4x100m and 4x400m.

Dave Leadbitter led the way with A string firsts in the 100m/200m and contributing legs to both victorious relay efforts. Equally impressive was 16 year old Jordan Gillbanks who won the 400m hurdles A race by nearly eight seconds, reducing his personal best by 0.7 secs.

Gillbanks is now two wins for two in this event which he only did for the first time three weeks ago. Not even remotely content with this achievement, Gillbanks won the B string 400m by four seconds, came within one centimetre of his long jump best as he once again sailed over six metres to victory, and ran in the winning 4x400m relay team.

16 year old Hakeem Duckworth-Porter who won both B string sprint races as well as anchoring the 4x100m relay to victory, while veteran athlete John Edwards contributed much-needed points to the team with valuable wins in the B string discus and hammer throw events.

The final event of the weekend was the latest Eastern Young Athletes League meet held at Cambridge, where 16 year old athlete Lily Seach entered the record books with a 42.1 secs win in the Under 17 Girls 300m race.

Seach’s time was not only an Under 17 club record by over half a second, but also beat the Under 20 Women’s record by the same margin. Just over an hour later, Seach improved her 200m personal best by half a second when running 26.4 secs.

Also in the Under 17 Women’s section, Eleanor Smith eased her way to victory in the 1500m. Her sister Polly also claimed success at the same distance with a win in the Under 13 Girls B string race.

Further wins in the B string events included Harry Whybrow in the Under 15 Boys long jump, Alex Cleland in the Under 17 Men’s 800m, and Hakeem Duckworth-Porter in the Under 17 Men’s 100m.

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