Blackburn Harriers athletes produced some fine performances at the 2024 North West Road Relays, hosted by Lancashire Athletics Association at Edge Hill University in Ormskirk. The forecast rain did come and got heavier as the day went on. The Club had teams in the U13B, U15B, U15G, U15B. U17W, U17M, Senior Women and Senior Men producing 5 Lancashire and one North West title as well as posting the fastest legs of the day in the Senior Men’s and Senior Women’s relays. (RESULTS)

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L- R Ross Harrison – Ben Makin – Matt Ramsden – Daniel Smith

L-R Agatha Taylor – Lottie Hesketh – Millie Jordan

L-R Tom Falencki – George Holman – William Grundy

The Senior Men had four complete teams competing, led home by the A team taking North West Gold and Lancashire Gold in a time of 62.14 from Liverpool in 2nd spot (62.34) and Vale Royal 3rd (64.08). Matt Ramsden ran the fastest leg of the day on leg one clocking 14.34 – the four Blackburn Harriers team placing 1st, 7th, 8th and 11th out of a field of 85 teams. The A team had Matt on 1st leg, Ben Makin on 2nd clocking 15.59, Daniel Smith on 3rd (16.21) and Ross Harrison on the final leg in 15.19. Andy Benson (16.31), Paul Bradshaw (17.16), Codie Dewhurst (18.58) and Jonny Murphy (17.22) had a combined time of 70.09 In 7th place for Lancashire followed just four seconds behind by our next team in 8th spot consisting of James Bretherton (17.27), Jack Lamb (17.06), Nick Gaskell (17.56) and Chris Davies (17.42) with a total time of 70.13 and in 11th spot for Lancashire our final team led off by Thomas Monks ( 17.42); Hayden Mercer (17.55), Danny Maynard (18.17) and Dominic Bretherton (20.00). Umair Rafiq ran the first leg of a part team in 18.03.

Matt Ramsden (A943)

Ross Harrison (D943)

The Senior Women had 3 complete teams racing with the A team led off by Isabel Holt – and like Matt in the Men’s race – posted the fastest leg of the day (17.00) leading the team home to the Lancashire title and 4th overall in the North West —  Isabel on Leg 1, Evie Taylor on Leg 2 running 19.33 and Ellen Sagar-Hesketh on the last Leg in 20.04 – our  other teams taking 4th in Lancashire  – Rebecca Ward ( 20.28), Anna Greenwood (19.32), Vikki Robertshaw (19.55) and in 7th spot came our team led by Katie Buckingham (21.01), Alison Lundy (21.38) and Hollie Cubbon with 23.36). positions out of 59 teams.

Isabel Holt

Vikki Robertshaw (C729)

Our U17 men had four teams out on the day with the A team finishing 3rd overall and 1st Lancashire team in 50.07  —  led off by Oliver Gill on Leg 1 running 16.17 – the 4th fastest time and backed up by Sam Aspey (16.36) and Henry Ward (17.13) in winning Lancashire Gold. Our other teams placed 2nd (Silver Medal) – Jack Wood (17.12), Ethan Cutler (17.57) and Logan McCredfie (17.36) – 4th with Matthew Smith on Leg 1 (17.26), George Ramsden (18.41) and Callum Singleton (17.59) followed in 5th position for Lancashire Alex Rothwell leading off with (18.13), Loucas Lancashire on the 2nd Leg (19.42) and Daniel Bretherton on the final Leg running 19.29.

Oliver Gill (A813)

Jack Wood

The U17 Women also won the Lancashire title, placing 6th overall with Charlotte Robertshaw leading off in 11.02, followed by Isabel Pacelli (11.20) and Isabelle Perry (11.22). Lottie Smith ran 11.02 in a part team. Millie Jordan picked herself up after falling in the race to lead the U15 Gilrs team home to a Lancashire Silver Medal as she ran 10.25 with team mates Lottie Hesketh (11.10) and Agatha Taylor (10.48) alongside our 2nd team of Bella Rose McCredie (11.37), Emma Robertshaw (11.26) and Charlotte Smith (11.01) finishing in 5th place in the Lancashire race. Annie Heaps ran the first Leg of a part team in a time of 12.12. One of the runs of the day came from William Grundy as he led the U15 Boys to winning the Lancashire title and 5th place overall in 9.15 with George Holman running 10.06 and Tom Falencki (10.00). Due to the traffic congestion and the need to change leg positions, William missed the start and had to make up some where around 200m and still managed to come home in 5th place on Leg 1. Liam Bennison ran 11.35 on the first Leg of a part team.

William Grundy (A626)

Tom Falencki (C626)

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Holly Bradshaw is in Europe at the moment vaulting in a number of different locations across the continet as she continues to compete right up to her last competition in Geneva. On September 2nd Holly competed at the XXXVIII^ Gara Int.le di Salto con l’Asta in Piazza in Chiari, Italy and came away with a joint win alongside Italy’s  Elisa Molinarolo – both of them clearing 4.63m. Just six days later – in Jahnstadion, Beckum (GER) – Holly was competing in the 24th International Pole Vault Meeting for Woman which she won, clearing 4.60m with new Zealands Imogen Ayris in 2nd (4.46m) and Belgium’s Ellen Vekemans in 3rd (4.32m).

(Chiari Pole Vault Video) — (Beckum Pole Vault Video)

Holly in Beckum, Germany

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Jack Hindle has had to recover from setbacks this year in starting out as Professional triathlete, not least of which was a bad accident on the bike in a earlier warm up race. He wasn’t deterred and got back into training as soon as he was able in preparation for the IRONMAN 70.3 Zell am See-Kapru. Posting times of 26.53 fro the Swim, 2hr 15.20 for the bike ride and 1hr 25.14 for the run – giving him a combined time of 4hr 13.19 in 26th place overall. (RESULTS) Commenting on his social media Jack reflected on his race “First Pro Series race complete I was initially disappointed with the result, but after a little bit of time to digest the performance, there’s lots of positives to take away and some really useful lessons learnt!Up to this point, I hadn’t even finished a race this year! An early season crash left me with a broken finger and no swimming for 6 weeks, then illness forced me into a DNF at IM 70.3 Swansea.Just finishing the race on Sunday felt like a win! I know deep down my fitness reflects a better race, but the lessons I’ve learnt, I’m going to implement into the next training block.This season hasn’t been easy physically, but has been even more challenging mentally! As an athlete all you want to do is race and race well.I can now say I’ve raced against the best in the world and Sundays race was exactly that! As a first year Pro I’m glad I’ve had the exposure to this for my own development.I’m even more motivated to build on this performance now and turn this season around.You can’t change what’s happened only what’s happening! Thank you everyone! “

Jack Hindle

On a similar theme U17 Matthew Smith and U15 Charlotte Smith were at the Schools National Games Finals at Loughborough University over the Bank Holiday weekend – Matthew compoeting for the North West in the Triathlon and Charlotte in the Modern Pentathlon.

  

Matthew with Alex Yee – Olympic Gold Medallist

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Catching up on other results – U17 Alisha Lehner was at the Bury Open meeting on Sunday 8th September running 13.64 in the 80m Hurdles for 2nd spot. U15’s Isabella Finn and Niamh Boland went in Heat 3 of the 100m – Isabella clocking 13.67 in 2nd and Niamh 13.72 in 3rd place. Heat 4 saw U15 James Acton-Grieves set a new PB of 13,81 in his Heat of the 100m in 4th place whilst U15 Isabelle Pawson also clocked a new PB in Heat 5 with her time of 14.46. A rare outing for Senior Brandon Zinyemba saw him clock a seasons best time of 11.69 in Heat 7 and another seasons best in the 200m (24.66) with U20 TJ & LJ athlete Samuel Mutombo clocking 12.23 in 5th spot in Heat 8 of the 100m and 24.97 in the 200m for a seasons best. U15 Niamh Boland then clocked a new PB by some 2 seconds in the 200m (28.19) in 6th in Heat 2, U15 Evie Fort clocked 28.79 in her Heat of the 200m followed by U15 Isabelle Pawson running 30.13 in her 200m Heat. U17’s Millee Schofield and Alisha Lehner also took on the 200m – Millee posting 25.54 (4th) in Heat 8 and Alisha 29.40 in 3rd in Heat 10. Final run of the day for the Harriers came from Evie Fort in the U15 Girls 300m where she placed 4th in 47.91. In the field events U15 Isabella Finn took 2nd place in the long jump with 4.56  – U15 James Acton-Grieves also taking 2nd place in the Long Jump with 4.52m. (RESULTS).

On the same weekend, there was an Open Meeting at Litherland hosted by the home club – Southport Waterloo & AC. A number of Blackburn Harriers Sportshall group and others went over to try the competition and liked it so much that they will be going to another next week at Blackpool. U13 Kai Addison had a good run in his 200m, clocking 26.6 in 2nd spot followed by U11’s Scarlett Hamil and Scarlett Cothliff running in Heat 2 of the U11Girls 150m clocking 27.4 and 29.9 respectively. In the 100m U13 Kai Addison placed 2nd again in 13.2 as Callum McKone ran 15.4 in the same Heat. U11 Amelie Holden ran 13.1 in her 75m Heat (3rd) whilst Sophie Douglas clocked 12.3 in 4th in her Heat, after which, Sophie than ran 2.03.5 in 2nd spot in the 600m race alongside team mate Scarlett Hamil running 2.34 in the same Heat. In the field events – U11 Amelie Holden jumped 2.90m in the Long Jump (4th) – Callum Mckone came 8th in the U13 boys Long Jump (3.56m) as U15 Alex Burns-Groves cleared 1.62m in winning the High Jump. Alex took on the Javelin later placing 3rd with a throw of 35.60m as U17 Loucas Lancashire competed in the Senior and U17 Men’s Javelin throwing 34.20m in 4th spot overall and in the final event – U11 Scarlett Cothliff threw 14.83m in the Vortex Ball. (RESULTS).

Sophie Douglas

L-R Scarlett Cothliff  (54) — Amelie Holden (106) — Scarlett Hamil (99)

Amelie Holden

V60 Tony Balko was out at the Speermesiter Throws Group meeting at Ormskirk on Bank Holiday weekend taking on the Discus where he threw a new PB of 41.01m with the 1kg.

Tony Balko with John Twiddle

Close to a 1000 runners lined up at this years Mid Cheshire 5k run on Friday August 30th – the race being won by Birchfield’s Aron Gebramariam in 13,.58 followed by Calum Johnson in 14.03 and Andrew Heyes in 3rd (14.08). Blackburn Harriers Jonny Murphy went in this one running 16.43 and 249th in his first ever race over the distance. (RESULTS).

Jonny Murphy (9074) – Photo Courtesey of Mick Hall Photography

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