Young Athletes Report 24th January 2017  

Aaron & Ahmed storm to victory

Ilford AC only had a small representation of athletes at the Essex Schools X Country Champs in Colchester on Saturday but still came away winning 2 of the 6 County individual titles available.
First up on Saturday,on a very cold day ,was the Junior Boys race. The Club had 2 athletes in this age group and had high hopes of success before the start of the race.
Aaron Samuel ,who has gradually improved during the X Country season took the lead from the very star and immediately raced into a 20 metre lead. He maintained his momentum as he continued to pull away from the field. Coming to the final part of the race he still had the power and speed to sprint and win the race by over 20 seconds and become Essex Champion. Aaron will now go to the Essex Schools where Ilford have high hopes for Aaron to do well.
Also in the race was Farris Patel.Farris has been injured for 3 months and has only just returned to training. He went off quickly and was with the front group but lack of training took its toll and Farris struggled to maintain his position and finally ended up 16th,which was still a great run and we will now see Farris improve for the rest of the season.

In the Intermediate Girls race Jordan Hinds came 31st
In the Intermediate Boys race Mungo Prior, stayed with leaders for the start of the race and battled to a respectable 11th place,in a very high quality field. Also in this Race was Leo Ronson, who came 48th. Leo is only new to the club and ran very gamely.
The final race of the day was the Senior Boys race,where Ilford’s Ahmed Abdulle was the pre race favourite. Even though Ahmed had a slight injury he made sure he ran a very controlled race to win by just over 6 seconds and win Ilford AC’s second title of the day. He too will now go to the English schools with very high hopes.
A great weekend for the Ilford youngsters.