Press Report

Ilford AC’s Malcolm Muir produced a very strong run in Saturday’s South of England Cross Country Championships on Saturday. Nearly 600 runners lined up for the start of the senior men’s race on a course set within the superb grounds of Holkham Hall, the home of the Earls of Leicester and the Coke family, situated on the North Norfolk coast. The gentle grassy undulations over 3 laps totalling 15000 metres favoured the gritty Muir as he got the better of his nearest rivals which included the Woodford Green duo of Matt Shone and Harold Wyber and Chelmsford’s Ryan Prout.

Muir finished in an excellent 62^nd position clocking an impressive time of 51minutes 39 seconds. Matt Maple also made the trip and was extremely happy to make the top 200 clocking 57.53 for 198^th place. The race was won by P. Wicks of Belgrave with Hugh Lobb of Bedford and County second and former national winner Dom Bannister back in third. Earlier in the day and on the eve of his 14^th birthday youngster Liam Leddy competed in the boys under 15’s race held over a 4.5k course. Always intended as a learning experience in a field of top class athletes Liam’s birthday treat proved to be no cakewalk as he battled bravely at the back of the field to finish 121^st .

Multi Terrain combined with endurance was the order of the day on Sunday as long distance exponents Terry Knightley and Sally Gillam tackled the arduous and dubious attractions of the Benflleet 15 mile road race. Set on a varied course comprising the hard gravel sections of Canvey Island’s sea wall, the boggy hills of Hadleigh Downs and fields of deep mud, the course always proves popular with runners looking to improve their strength in readiness for a spring marathon.

This year some very strong winds were thrown into the mix as both Ilford athletes duly used the event as a hard training run with Knightley completing the course in 1hr 51mins 12 secs for 67^th position and Gillam within 1 minute of her target time in 2hrs 15mins 59 secs (42^nd in the ladies race). Race Walker Steve Allen decided to swap to the running discipline coming home in a good time of 1hr 53minutes 26 secs after struggling in the last 2 miles. The race was won by Greg Deacon of Basildon in 1hr 30mins 19secs.

Ilford AAC now look forward to next weekends County half marathon championships which will be held at Great Bentley near Colchester.

Essex Indoor Championships Days 1 and 2 Chelmsford – report by Paul Cheal

Ilford AC track and field athletes took part in the Essex Indoor Championships at Chelmsford this weekend.

On Day 1 Ilford only had only one competitor which was Youcef Zatat who took part in the U/15 Boys shot putt. Youcef was stepping up in age group but this did not seem to deter his performance. He threw consistently which culminated in a putt just shy of the 9m mark at - 8m 98cm to finish 5th.

Day 2 saw Ilford reap much success with 4 medals being collected on the day. First was the U/17 Boys shot putt with Rob Legon and Chris Dawe. Again like Youcef they were stepping up in age group. In the competition they both putt well and Chris was able to get a PB with his first putt of - 8m 91cm but wasn't able to do any better, a good performance though. Rob not to be outdone after training Chris after the 1st round was able to comeback with a putt of - 9m 12cm which was good enough to take SILVER Medal whilst Chris came third and BRONZE.

Simeon Stuart in the U/17 Boys took part in 3 events and was rewarding in the first of them. His leap of - 6m 05cm in the long jump was good enough for him the secure GOLD. He carried this on in the triple jump but just missed out on a medal finishing 4th with - 11m 39cm. In the 60m sprint he ran well to qualify for the semi final in a time of - 7.7sec and equalled that in the semi-final but unfortunately did not qualify for the final.

The only girl to take part was Sarah Kigozi in the U/17's. Sarah unusually decided to do the shot putt and did not disgrace herself coming 5th with - 5m 73cm. However Sarah reverted to her more favoured event of sprinting. In the 60m she recorded a heat time of 8.3sec to qualify and then went one step forward like last year to qualify for the final with a semi final time of - 8.4sec. In a very close final Sarah finished in 6th place with the same time of - 8.4sec.

The only senior to make an appearance was Sam Malekout. He did the long Jump and 60m. Like Simeon, Sam jumped well and recorded a PB with a leap of - 6m 00cm this was also good enough for a medal which turned out to be GOLD, well done. In the 60m he ran a solid race to finish in a time of - 7.6sec to qualify for the semi finals, but was unlucky not to qualify for the final even though he ran a slightly better race finishing close to 7.5sec (still to be confirmed).

Anyway, the athletes did themselves proud and can hopefully look forward to a prosperous season ahead of them.